Number  133 


'»-*•   '"^    mmfTt 


ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN 

BY 

CARL   SCHURZ 


WITH   TESTIMONIES    BY 

EMERSON,  WHITTIER 
HOLMES,   AND    LOWELL, 

AND 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 
OF  CARL  SCHURZ 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
BOSTON,  NEW  YORK,  AND  CHICAGO 


RIVERSIDE  LITERATURE  SERIES 


Complete  Catalogue  and  Price  List  free  upon  application 


1.  Longfellow's  Evangeline. 

2.  Longfellow's  Courtship  of  Miles  Standish. 

3.  Dramatization  of  Miles  Standish. 

4.  Whittier's  Snow-Bound,  etc. 

5.  Whittier's  Mabel  Martin. 

6.  Holmes's  Grandmother's  Story. 

7.  8,  9.  Hawthorne's  Grandfather's  Chair. 

10.  Hawthorne's  Biographical  Series. 

11.  Longfellow's  Children's  Hour,  etc. 
13,  14.  Longfellow's  Song  of  Hiawatha. 

16.  Bayard  Taylor's  Lars. 

17,  18.  Hawthorne's  Wonder-Book. 
i9,  20.  Frajklin's  Autobiography. 

21.  Franklin's  Poor  RicL  ird's  Almanac,  and 

Other  Papers. 

22,  23.  Hawthorne's  Tanglewood  Tales. 

24.  Washington's  Farewell  Addresses,  etc. 

25,  26.  Longfellow's  Golden  Legend. 

27.  Thoreau's  Forest  Trees,  etc. 

28.  Burrouglis's  Birds  and  Bees. 

29.  Hawthorne's  Little  Daffydowndilly,  etc. 

30.  Lowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  etc. 

31.  Holmes's  My  Hunt  after  the  Captain,  etc. 

32.  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  Speech,  etc. 
33-35.  Longfellow's  Tales  of  a  Wayside  Inn. 

36.  Burroughs's  Sharp  Eyes,  etc. 

37.  Warner's  A-Hunting  of  the  Deer,  etc. 

38.  Longfellow's  Building  of  the  Ship,  etc. 

39.  Lowell's  Books  and  Libraries,  etc. 

40.  Hawthorne's  Tales  of  the  White  Hills. 

41.  Whittier's  Tent  on  the  Beach,  etc. 

42.  Emerson's  Fortune  of  the  Republic,  etc. 
43;  Bryant's  Ulysses  among  the  Phaeacians* 

44.  Edgeworth's  Waste  not,  Want  not,  etc. 

45.  Macaulay'a  Lays  of  Ancient  Rome. 

46.  Old  Testament  Stories. 

47.  48.  Scudder's  Fables  and  Folk  Stories. 
49,  50.  Andersen's  Stories. 

51.  Irving's  Rip  Van  Winkle,  etc. 

52.  Irving's  The  Voyage,  etc. 

53.  Scott's  Lady  of  the  Lake. 

54.  Bryant's  Thanatopsis,  etc. 

55.  ShakHspeare's  Merchant  of  Venice. 

56.  Webster's  First  Bunker  Hill  Oration. 

57.  Dickens's  Christmas  Carol. 

58.  Dickens's  Cricket  on  the  Hearth. 

59.  Verse  and  Prose  for  Beginners  in  Reading. 

60.  61.  The  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley  Papers. 
62.  Fiske's  War  of  Independence. 

03.  Longfellow's  Paul  Revere 's  Ride,  etc. 
64-66.  Lambs'  Tales  from  Shakespeare. 

67.  Shakespeare's  Julius  Caesar. 

68.  Goldsmith's  Deserted  Village,  etc. 

69.  Hawthorne's  The  Old  Manse,  etc. 

70.  71.  Selection  from  Whittier's  Child  Life. 

72.  Milton's  Minor  Poems. 

73.  Tennyson's  Enoch  Arden,  etc. 

74.  Gray's  Elegy  ;  Cowper's  John  Gilpin. 

75.  Scudder's  George  Washington. 

76.  Wordsworth's  Intimations  of  Immortality. 

77.  Burns's  Cotter's  Saturday  Night,  etc. 

78.  Goldsmith's  Vicar  of  Wakefield. 

79.  Lamb's  Old  China,  etc. 


80.  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner ;  Campbell's 

Lochiel's  Warning,  etc. 

81.  Holmes's  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-Table. 

82.  Hawthorne's  Twice-Told  Tales. 
83«  Eliot's  Silas  Marner. 

84.  Dana's  Two  Years  Before  the  Mast. 

85.  Hughes's  Tom  Brown's  School  Days. 

86.  Scott's  Ivanhoe. 

87.  Defoe's  Robinson  Crusoe. 

88.  Stowe's  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

89.  90.  Swift's  Gulliver's  Voyages. 

91.  Hawthorne's  House  of  the  Seven  Gables. 

92.  Burroughs's  A  Bunch  of  Herbs,  etc. 

93.  Shakespeare's  As  You  Like  It. 

94.  Milton's  Paradise  Lost.     Books  I-IIL 
95-98.  Cooper's  Last  of  the  Mohicans. 
99.  Tennyson's  Coming  of  Arthur,  etc. 

100.  Burke's  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies. 

101.  Pope's  Iliad.    Books  I,  VI,  XXII,  XXIV. 

102.  Macaulay's  Johnson  and  Goldsmith. 

103.  Macaulay's  Milton. 

104.  Macaulay's  Addison. 

105.  Carlyle's  Essay  on  Burns. 

106.  Shakespeare's  Macbeth. 

107.  108.  Grimms'  Tales. 

109.  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress. 

110.  De  Quincey's  Flight  of  a  Tartar  Tribe. 

111.  Tennyson's  Princess. 

112.  Cranch's  ^neid.     Books  I-III. 

113.  Poems  from  Emerson. 

114.  Peabody's  Old  Greek  Folk  Stories. 

115.  Browning's  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin,  etc. 

116.  Shakespeare's  Hamlet. 

117.  118.  Stories  from  the  Arabian  Nights. 
119,  120.  Poe's  Poems  and  Tales. 

121.  Speech  by  Hayne  on  Foote's  Resolution. 

122.  Speech  by  Webster  in  Reply  to  Hayne. 

123.  Lowell's  Democracy,  etc. 

124.  Aldrich's  The  Cruise  of  the  Dolphin. 

125.  Dryden's  Palamon  and  Arcite. 

126.  Ruskin's  King  of  the  Golden  River,  etc. 

127.  Keats's  Ode  on  a  Grecian  Urn,  etc. 

128.  Byron's  Prisoner  of  Chillon,  etc. 

129.  Plato's  Judgment  of  Socrates. 

130.  Emerson's  The  Superlative,  etc. 

131.  Emerson's  Nature,  etc. 

132.  Arnold's  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  etc. 

133.  Schurz's  Abraham  Lincoln. 

134.  Scott's  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel. 

135.  Chaucer's  Prologue. 

136.  Chaucer's  The  Knight's  Tale,  etc. 

137.  Bryant's  Iliad.  Bks.  I,  VI,  XXII,  XXIV. 

138.  Hawthorne's  The  Custom  House,  etc. 

139.  Howells's    Doorstep    Acquaintance,  and 

Other  Sketches. 

140.  Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond. 
142.  Ruskin's  Sesame  and  Lilies. 

144.  Scudder's  The  Book  of  Legends. 

145.  Hawthorne's  The  Gentle  Boy,  and  Other 

Tales. 

146.  Longfellow's  Giles  Corey. 

147.  Pope's  Rape  of  the  Lock,  etc. 

148.  Hawthorne's  Marble  Faun. 


(Sec  also  back  covers) 


(74) 


Copyright,  1891,  oy  M.  P.  Bice 


Kifcerstoe  literature 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


AN  ESSAY 

BY 

CAKL  SCHUKZ 


TOGETHER  WITH  TESTIMONIES  BY  EMERSON 

WHITTIER,  HOLMES,  AND  LOWELL,  AND 

A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

OF  CARL  SCHURZ 


BOSTON      NEW  YORK      CHICAGO      SAN   FRANCISCO 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 
llitcrgiDe  preg?  CambriDge 


COPYRIGHT,    1891,   BY   CARL   SCHURZ   AND   HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   &   CO 

COPYRIGHT,    1899,    BY   HOUGHTON,   MIFFLIN   &    CO. 

COPYRIGHT,    1919,    BY   CARL   L.   SCHURZ 

ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


Or  »ibt rsibc  $reg* 

CAMBRIDGE  .   MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED  IN  THB  U  .  S  .   A 


/•?/? 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  or  CARL  SCHURZ         ....  5 
CHRONOLOGICAL  LIST  OF  EVENTS  IN  THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM 

LINCOLN 9 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.    BY  CARL  SCHURZ 11 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN.    REMARKS  AT  THE  FUNERAL  SERVICES 
HELD  IN  CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1865.    BY  RALPH  WALDO 

EMERSON 77 

THE  EMANCIPATION  GROUP.    BY  JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER    84 
FOR  THE  SERVICES  IN  MEMORY  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN,  BOS- 
TON, JUNE  1,  1865.    BY  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES        .    86 

EXTRACT  FROM  THE  ODE  RECITED  AT  THE  HARVARD  COMMEM- 
ORATION, JULY  21,  1865.    BY  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL      88 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  CARL 

SCHURZ. 

IT  is  interesting  to  note  that  one  of  the  best 
studies  of  an  American  statesman  and  the  best  brief 
summary  of  Abraham  Lincoln's  career  came  from  the 
hand  of  one  born  out  of  the  country ;  for  the  fact 
points  two  ways,  —  it  indicates  the  hospitality  of 
America,  and  it  intimates  how  great  a  contribution 
the  rest  of  the  world  is  constantly  making  to  the 
development  of  American  life.  We  sometimes  think 
and  speak  as  if  Americans  and  American  institutions 
all  sprang  from  the  colonization  which  took  place 
from  England  in  the  seventeenth  century,  forgetting 
that  the  nineteenth  century  has  seen  a  far  more  exten- 
sive and  more  varied  migration  from  all  Europe. 

Carl  Schurz  was  born  March  2, 1829,  near  Cologne, 
Prussia,  and  was  a  student  in  the  University  of  Bonn 
in  1848,  when  the  revolutionary  movement  in  Ger- 
many drew  to  itself  many  enthusiastic  young  men 
who  thought  they  saw  the  opportunity  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  republican  principles.  The  movement 
was  quickly  suppressed  by  the  existing  government 
and  led  to  the  exile  of  some  of  the  most  promising 
men  of  intellectual  powers.  Many  came  to  this  coun- 
try and  found  positions  in  colleges  and  universities. 
One  of  the  conspicuous  men  was  Francis  Lieber,  who 
continued  his  academic  life  and  was  long  a  force  as 
a  political  thinker  and  writer.  Another  was  Carl 
Schurz,  who,  with  more  of  the  qualities  of  a  public 


6  BIOGRAPHICAL    SKETCH. 

man,  began  at  once,  on  coming  to  this  country  in 
1852,  to  prepare  himself  for  active  life.  He  knew 
little  or  no  English  when  he  landed,  but  in  thre« 
years  he  had  so  mastered  the  study  of  law  that  he 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  Jefferson,  Wisconsin.  He 
found  himself  amongst  his  former  countrymen  in  the 
Northwest,  and  at  once  threw  himself  ardently  into 
politics  in  sympathy  with  the  movement  against  the 
extension  of  slavery. 

So  rapidly  did  he  come  to  the  front  that  he  was 
candidate  for  the  office  of  Lieutenant-Governor  of 
Wisconsin  in  1857,  and  came  within  two  hundred 
votes  of  an  election.  In  the  great  debate  between 
Lincoln  and  Douglas  in  1858,  he  joined  himself  to 
Lincoln  and  took  an  active  part  in  that  political  cam- 
paign. That  was  the  beginning  of  his  friendship  with 
Lincoln  ;  and  though  as  chairman  of  the  Wiscon- 
sin delegation  to  the  convention  in  1860,  he  persist- 
ently advocated  the  nomination  of  Mr.  Seward,  he 
accepted  heartily  the  choice  of  Lincoln,  and  from  that 
time  till  the  election  was  incessantly  working  for  him 
and  addressing  political  meetings. 

Mr.  Lincoln  set  so  high  a  value  on  Mr.  Schurz's 
worth  that  he  appointed  him  Minister  to  Spain.  At 
the  time,  he  was  actively  engaged  in  organizing  the 
first  cavalry  regiment  of  volunteers ;  and  when  after 
a  few  months  at  Madrid  he  returned  to  lay  before  the 
administration  the  result  of  his  observation  of  the 
political  attitude  of  European  governments,  he  was 
appointed  Brigadier-General,  and  a  few  months  later 
Major-General,  and  served  in  the  field  till  the  end  of 
Vjie  war. 

His  clear  intelligence  of  public  affairs  was  recog- 
nized in  his  appointment  by  President  Johnson  as 


CARL  SCHURZ.  7 

special  commissioner  to  report  on  the  condition  of  the 
seaboard  and  Gulf  States.  His  report  had  great 
weight  with  Congress  in  its  subsequent  legislation, 
but  Mr.  Schurz  made  his  political  judgment  still  more 
effective  in  the  years  of  reconstruction  by  his  writings 
as  a  journalist.  Successively  a  special  correspondent 
of  The  New  York  Tribune  and  editor  of  the  Detroit 
Post,  he  became  in  1867  part  owner  and  editor  of  the 
Westliche  Post  of  St.  Louis.  So  strong  a  power  did 
he  now  become  that  in  1869  he  was  elected  United 
States  senator  from  Missouri. 

He  was,  however,  a  man  who  held  firmly  to  what 
he  conceived  to  be  political  principles  when  they  came 
into  conflict  with  party  policy,  and  he  threw  himself 
into  the  movement  known  as  the  Liberal  Republican 
party  in  1872.  In  1876  he  returned  to  the  support  of 
the  Republican  party,  and  President  Hayes  invited 
him  into  his  cabinet  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  His 
administration  of  that  office  afforded  a  fresh  illustra- 
tion of  his  application  of  political  principles  to  con- 
duct. He  had  identified  himself  with  the  movement 
for  the  reform  of  the  civil  service,  and  being  now  in  a 
position  where  he  could  put  his  belief  into  practice,  he 
made  the  department  a  witness  to  the  efficacy  of  the 
merit  system,  and  gave  a  striking  object  lesson  of  the 
possibility  of  carrying  on  the  government  on  this  basis. 

At  the  close  of  Mr.  Hayes's  administration  Mr. 
Schurz  abandoned  official  life,  and  returned  to  jour- 
nalism, giving  also  a  few  years  to  business,  but  he  did 
not  abandon  the  public  service.  An  independent  in 
politics,  he  continued  to  give  his  powerful  influence, 
in  speech  and  in  writing,  on  all  the  great  political 
questions,  maintaining  a  devotion  to  high  ideals,  so 
that  it  is  doubtful  if  any  private  citizen  in  the  last 


8  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH. 

twenty  years  has  been  listened  to  more  attentively. 
When  the  seventieth  anniversary  of  his  birthday 
came,  there  was  a  large  popular  expression  of  grati* 
tude  and  admiration. 

One  source  of  Mr.  Schurz's  influence  may  be  traced 
to  the  singular  ability  with  which  he  has  made  him- 
self at  home  in  American  political  history.  Another 
German,  Dr.  Von  Hoist,  has  also  shown  this  remark- 
able faculty,  but  Dr.  Von  Hoist  has  been  especially 
a  political  philosopher ;  Mr.  Schurz  has  been  a  politi- 
cal historian,  and  his  "  Henry  Clay,"  in  the  American 
Statesmen  series,  displays  an  intimate  familiarity  with 
the  ins  and  outs  of  politics.  He  has  written  it  from 
an  American,  not  a  German- American  point  of  view ; 
and  it  is  this  identification  of  himself  with  his  adopted 
country,  illustrated  also  by  his  idiomatic  use  of  the 
English  language,  while  yet  retaining  the  power  of 
speaking  freely  in  his  mother  tongue  to  his  former 
countrymen,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  his  moral  influ- 
ence. He  brought  an  ardent  love  of  free  institutions 
with  him  when  he  came  to  this  country,  and  he  has 
always  lived  enveloped  with  this  atmosphere  while 
having  a  firm  hold  of  the  soil  of  American  life. 

Slight  as  the  sketch  is  which  follows,  it  has  a 
double  value.  It  is  a  fine,  discriminating  analysis  of 
Lincoln's  greatness,  couched  in  a  strong,  lucid  style, 
and  it  reflects  a  habit  of  mind  which  political  stu- 
dents may  wisely  cultivate :  the  habit,  that  is,  of  re- 
ferring political  careers  to  standards  of  righteousness 
and  not  of  expediency.  Such  a  habit  is  of  untold 
worth  in  a  democratic  country  like  America,  where 
the  disposition,  inherent  in  the  political  consciousness, 
of  accepting  the  judgment  of  the  majority  is  liable 
to  be  misled  into  a  too  hasty  following  of  the  crowd 
which  is  making'  the  loudest  noise. 


CHRONOLOGICAL    LIST    OF    EVENTS    IN 
THE  LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 


Born  in  a  log-cabin  near   Hodgensville,  now  Larue  County, 

Kentucky February  12,  1809 

His  father  moves  with  his  family  into  the  wilderness  near  Gen- 

tryville,  Indiana       ........         1816 

His  mother  dies,  at  the  age  of  35 1818 

His  father's  second  marriage 1819 

Walks  nine  miles  a  day,  going  to  and  returning  from  school     .     1826 
Makes  a  trip  to  New  Orleans  and  back,  at  work  on  a  flat-boat       1828 
Drives  in  an  ox-cart  with  his  father  and  stepmother  to  a  clear- 
ing on  the  Sangamon  River,  near  Decatur,  Illinois      .         .     1829 
Splits  rails,  to  surround  the  clearing  with  a  fence  .         .         .         1829 
Makes  another  flat-boat  trip  to  New  Orleans  and  back,  on  which 
trip  he  first  sees  negroes  shackled  together  in  chains,  and 
forms  his  opinions  concerning  slavery          .                  .    May,  1831 
Begins  work  in  a  store  at  New  Salem,  Illinois        .         .  August,  1831 
Enlists  in  the  Black  Hawk  War ;  elected  a  captain  of  volun- 
teers     1832 

Announces  himself  a  Whig  candidate  for  the  Legislature,  and 

is  defeated 1832 

Storekeeper,  Postmaster,  and  Surveyor      .        .        .         .         ;     1833 

Elected  to  the  Illinois  Legislature 1834 

Reflected  to  the  Legislature      .....         1835  to  1845 

Studies  law  at  Springfield 1831 

Is  a  Presidential  elector  on  the  Whig  national  ticket         .         .     1840 

Marries  Mary  Todd November  4,  1842 

Canvasses  Illinois  for  Henry  Clay 1844 

Elected  to  Congress 1846 

Supports  General  Taylor  for  President 1848 

Engages  in  law  practice 1849-1854 

Debates  with  Douglas  at  Peoria  and  Springfield  .  .  .  1855 
Aids  in  organizing  the  Republican  party  .  .  .  1855-1856 
Joint  debates  in  Illinois  with  Stephen  A.  Douglas  .  .  .  1858 


10  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Makes  political  speeches  in  Ohio 1869 

Visits  New  York,  and  speaks  at  Cooper  Union  .  February,  1860 
Attends  Republican  State  Convention  at  Decatur ;  declared  to 

be  the  choice  of  Illinois  for  the  Presidency         .         .    May,  1860 
Nominated  at  Chicago  as  the  Republican  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent          May  16,  1860 

Elected  President  over  J.  C.  Breckenridge,  Stephen  A.  Douglas, 

and  John  Bell November,  1860 

Inaugurated  President March  4,  1861 

Issues  first  order  for  troops  to  put  down  the  Rebellion,  April  15,  1861 

Urges  McClellan  to  advance April,  1862 

Appeals  for  the  support  of  border  States  to  the  Union  cause, 

March  to  July,  1862 

Calls  for  300,000  more  troops July,  1862 

Issues  Emancipation  Proclamation  .  .  .  January  1,  1863 
Thanks  Grant  for  capture  of  Vicksburg  ....  July,  1863 
His  address  at  Gettysburg  ....  November  19,  1863 

Calls  for  500,000  volunteers July,  1864 

Renominated  and  reflected  President  .....  1864 
Thanks  Sherman  for  capture  of  Atlanta  .  .  .  September,  1864 
His  second  inauguration  .  .  .  <  .  March  4,  1865 
Assassinated  ........  April  14, 1865 


ABKAHAM  LINCOLN. 

BY  CARL  SCHURZ. 

No  American  can  study  the  character  and  career  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  without  being  carried  away  by  sen- 
timental emotions.  We  are  always  inclined  to  ideal- 
ize that  which  we  love,  —  a  state  of  mind  very  unfa- 
vorable to  the  exercise  of  sober  critical  judgment.  It 
is  therefore  not  surprising  that  most  of  those  who  have 
written  or  spoken  on  that  extraordinary  man,  even 
while  conscientiously  endeavoring  to  draw  a  life-like 
portraiture  of  his  being,  and  to  form  a  just  estimate 
of  his  public  conduct,  should  have  drifted  into  more 
or  less  indiscriminating  eulogy,  painting  his  great  fea- 
tures in  the  most  glowing  colors,  and  covering  with 
tender  shadings  whatever  might  look  like  a  blemish. 

But  his  standing  before  posterity  will  not  be  exalted 
by  mere  praise  of  his  virtues  and  abilities,  nor  by  any 
concealment  of  his  limitations  and  faults.  The  stature 
of  the  great  man,  one  of  whose  peculiar  charms  con- 
sisted in  his  being  so  unlike  all  other  great  men,  will 
rather  lose  than  gain  by  the  idealization  which  so 
easily  runs  into  the  commonplace.  For  it  was  dis« 
tinctly  the  weird  mixture  of  qualities  and  forces  in 
him,  of  the  lofty  with  the  common,  the  ideal  with  the 
uncouth,  of  that  which  he  had  become  with  that  which 
he  had  not  ceased  to  be,  that  made  him.  so  fascinating 
a  character  among  his  fellow  men,  gave  him  his  singu- 
lar power  over  their  minds  and  hearts,  and  fitted  him 
to  be  the  greatest  leader  in  the  greatest  crisis  of  our 
national  life. 


12  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

His  was  indeed  a  marvellous  growth.  The  states- 
man or  the  military  hero  born  and  reared  in  a  log 
cabin  is  a  familiar  figure  in  American  history  ;  but 
we  may  search  in  vain  among  our  celebrities  for  one 
whose  origin  and  early  life  equalled  Abraham  Lin- 
coln's in  wretchedness.  He  first  saw  the  light  in 
a  miserable  hovel  in  Kentucky,  on  a  farm  consisting 
of  a  few  barren  acres  in  a  dreary  neighborhood ;  his 
father  a  typical  "  poor  Southern  white,"  shiftless  and 
improvident,  without  ambition  for  himself  or  his  chil- 
dren, constantly  looking  for  a  new  piece  of  land  on 
which  he  might  make  a  living  without  much  work ; 
his  mother,  in  her  youth  handsome  and  bright,  grown 
prematurely  coarse  in  feature  and  soured  in  mind  by 
daily  toil  and  care ;  the  whole  household  squalid, 
cheerless,  and  utterly  void  of  elevating  inspirations. 
Only  when  the  family  had  "  moved  "  into  the  malari- 
ous backwoods  of  Indiana,  the  mother  had  died,  and 
a  stepmother,  a  woman  of  thrift  and  energy,  had  taken 
charge  of  the  children,  the  shaggy-headed,  ragged, 
barefooted,  forlorn  bpy,  then  seven  years  old,  "  began 
to  feel  like  a  human  being."  Hard  work  was  his 
early  lot.  When  a  mere  boy  he  had  to  help  in  sup- 
porting the  family,  either  on  his  father's  clearing,  or 
hired  out  to  other  farmers  to  plough,  or  dig  ditches, 
or  chop  wood,  or  drive  ox  teams  ;  occasionally  also  to 
"tend  the  baby"  when  the  farmer's  wife  was  other- 
wise engaged.  He  could  regard  it  as  an  advancement 
to  a  higher  sphere  of  activity  when  he  obtained  work 
in  a  "  cross-roads  store,"  where  he  amused  the  cus- 
tomers by  his  talk  over  the  counter ;  for  he  soon 
distinguished  himself  among  the  backwoods  folk  as 
one  who  had  something  to  say  worth  listening  to.  To 
win  that  distinction,  he  had  to  draw  mainly  upon 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  13 

his  wits ;  for  while  his  thirst  for  knowledge  was 
great,  his  opportunities  for  satisfying  that  thirst  were 
woefully  slender. 

In  the  log  schoolhouse,  which  he  could  visit  but 
little,  he  was  taught  only  reading,  writing,  and  ele- 
mentary arithmetic.  Among  the  people  of  the  settle- 
ment, bush  farmers  and  small  tradesmen,  he  found 
none  of  uncommon  intelligence  or  education  ;  but 
some  of  them  had  a  few  books,  which  he  borrowed 
eagerly.  Thus  he  read  and  re-read  ^Esop's  Fables, 
learning  to  tell  stories  with  a  point  and  to  argue  by 
parables  ;  he  read  Robinson  Crusoe,  The  Pilgrim's 
Progress,  a  short  history  of  the  United  States,  and 
Weems's  Life  of  Washington.  To  the  town  con- 
stable's he  went  to  read  the  Revised  Statutes  of  Indi- 
ana. Every  printed  page  that  fell  into  his  hands  he 
would  greedily  devour,  and  his  family  and  friends 
watched  him  with  wonder,  as  the  uncouth  boy,  after 
his  daily  work,  crouched  in  a  corner  of  the  log  cabin 
or  outside  under  a  tree,  absorbed  in  a  book  while 
munching  his  supper  of  corn  bread.  In  this  manner 
he  began  to  gather  some  knowledge,  and  sometimes 
he  would  astonish  the  girls  with  such  startling  re- 
marks as  that  the  earth  was  moving  around  the  sun, 
and  not  the  sun  around  the  earth,  and  they  marvelled 
where  "Abe'  could  have  got  such  queer  notions. 
Soon  he  also  felt  the  impulse  to  write,  not  only  mak- 
ing extracts  from  books  he  wished  to  remember,  but 
also  composing  little  essays  of  his  own.  First  he 
sketched  these  with  charcoal  on  a  wooden  shovel 
scraped  white  with  a  drawing-knife,  or  on  basswood 
shingles.  Then  he  transferred  them  to  paper,  which 
was  a  scarce  commodity  in  the  Lincoln  household, 
taking  care  to  cut  his  expressions  close,  so  that  they 


14  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

might  not  cover  too  much  space,  —  a  style-forming 
method  greatly  to  be  commended.  Seeing  boys  put 
a  burning  coal  on  the  back  of  a  wood  turtle,  he  was 
moved  to  write  on  cruelty  to  animals.  Seeing  met 
intoxicated  with  whiskey,  he  wrote  on  temperance. 
In  verse-making,  too,  he  tried  himself,  and  in  satire 
on  persons  offensive  to  him  or  others,  —  satire  the 
rustic  wit  of  which  was  not  always  fit  for  ears  polite. 
Also  political  thoughts  he  put  upon  paper,  and  some 
of  his  pieces  were  even  deemed  good  enough  for  pub- 
lication in  the  county  weekly. 

Thus  he  won  a  neighborhood  reputation  as  a  clever 
young  man,  which  he  increased  by  his  performances 
as  a  speaker,  not  seldom  drawing  upon  himself  the 
dissatisfaction  of  his  employers  by  mounting  a  stump 
in  the  field,  and  keeping  the  farm  hands  from  their 
work  by  little  speeches  in  a  jocose  and  sometimes  also 
a  serious  vein.  At  the  rude  social  frolics  of  the  settle- 
ment he  became  an  important  person,  telling  funny 
stories,  mimicking  the  itinerant  preachers  who  had 
happened  to  pass  by,  and  making  his  mark  at  wres- 
tling matches,  too  ;  for  at  the  age  of  seventeen  he  had 
attained  his  full  height,  six  feet  four  inches  in  his 
stockings,  if  he  had  any,  and  a  terribly  muscular  clod- 
hopper he  was.  But  he  was  known  never  to  use  his 
extraordinary  strength  to  the  injury  or  humiliation  of 
others ;  rather  to  do  them  a  kindly  turn,  or  to  enforce 
justice  and  fair  dealing  between  them.  All  this  made 
him  a  favorite  in  backwoods  society,  although  in  some 
things  he  appeared  a  little  odd  to  his  friends.  Far 
more  than  any  of  them,  he  was  given,  not  only  to  read- 
ing, but  to  fits  of  abstraction,  to  quiet  musing  with 
himself,  and  also  to  strange  spells  of  melancholy,  from 
frhich  he  often  would  pass  in  a  moment  to  rollicking 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  15 

outbursts  of  droll  humor.  But  on  the  whole  he  was 
one  of  the  people  among  whom  he  lived ;  in  appear- 
ance perhaps  even  a  little  more  uncouth  than  most  of 
them,  —  a  very  tall,  rawboned  youth,  with  large  fea/ 
tures,  dark,  shrivelled  skin,  and  rebellious  hair ;  his 
arms  and  legs  long,  out  of  proportion ;  clad  in  deer- 
skin trousers,  which  from  frequent  exposure  to  the 
rain  had  shrunk  so  as  to  sit  tightly  on  his  limbs, 
leaving  several  inches  of  bluish  shin  exposed  between 
their  lower  end  and  the  heavy  tan-colored  shoes  ;  the 
nether  garment  held  usually  by  only  one  suspender, 
that  was  strung  over  a  coarse  home-made  shirt ;  the 
head  covered  in  winter  with  a  coonskin  cap,  in  sum- 
mer with  a  rough  straw  hat  of  uncertain  shape,  with- 
out a  band. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  he  felt  himself  much  superior 
to  his  surroundings,  although  he  confessed  to  a  yearn- 
ing for  some  knowledge  of  the  world  outside  of  the 
circle  in  which  he  lived.  This  wish  was  gratified ; 
but  how  ?  At  the  age  of  nineteen  he  went  down  the 
Mississippi  to  New  Orleans  as  a  flatboat  hand,  tem- 
porarily joining  a  trade  many  members  of  which  at 
that  time  still  took  pride  in  being  called  "  half  horse 
and  half  alligator."  After  his  return  he  worked  and 
lived  in  the  old  way  until  the  spring  of  1830,  when 
his  father  "  moved  again,"  this  time  to  Illinois ;  and 
on  the  journey  of  fifteen  days  "  Abe  "  had  to  drive 
the  ox  wagon  which  carried  the  household  goods. 
Another  log  cabin  was  built,  and  then,  fencing  a  field, 
Abraham  Lincoln  split  those  historic  rails  which  were 
destined  to  play  so  picturesque  a  part  in  the  presiden- 
tial campaign  twenty-eight  years  later. 

Having  come  of  age,  Lincoln  left  the  family,  and 
u struck  out  for  himself."  He  had  to  "take  jobs 


16  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

whenever  he  could  get  them."  The  first  of  these 
carried  him  again  as  a  flatboat  hand  to  New  Orleans. 
There  something  happened  that  made  a  lasting  im- 
pression  upon  his  soul :  he  witnessed  a  slave  auction 
"His  heart  bled,"  wrote  one  of  his  companions; 
"  said  nothing  much  ;  was  silent ;  looked  bad.  I  can 
say,  knowing  it,  that  it  was  on  this  trip  that  he  formed 
his  opinion  on  slavery.  It  run  its  iron  in  him  then 
and  there,  May,  1831.  I  have  heard  him  say  so 
often."  Then  he  lived  several  years  at  New  Salem, 
in  Illinois,  a  small  mushroom  village,  with  a  mill, 
some  "  stores  '  and  whiskey  shops,  that  rose  quickly, 
and  soon  disappeared  again.  It  was  a  desolate,  dis- 
jointed, half-working,  and  half-loitering  life,  without 
any  other  aim  than  to  gain  food  and  shelter  from  day 
to  day.  He  served  as  pilot  on  a  steamboat  trip,  then 
as  clerk  in  a  store  and  a  mill ;  business  failing,  he 
was  adrift  for  some  time.  Being  compelled  to  measure 
his  strength  with  the  chief  bully  of  the  neighborhood, 
and  overcoming  him,  he  became  a  noted  person  in 
that  muscular  community,  and  won  the  esteem  and 
friendship  of  the  ruling  gang  of  ruffians  to  such  a 
degree  that,  when  the  Black  Hawk  war 1  broke  out, 
they  elected  him,  a  young  man  of  twenty-three,  captain 
of  a  volunteer  company,  composed  mainly  of  roughs 
of  their  kind.  He  took  the  field,  and  his  most  note- 
worthy deed  of  valor  consisted,  not  in  killing  an 
Indian,  but  in  protecting  against  his  own  men,  at  the 

1  Black  Hawk  was  a  chief  of  the  Indian  tribe  of  Sacs.  The 
Sacs  and  Foxes  made  a  treaty  in  1830,  by  which  their  lands  in 
Illinois  were  ceded  to  the  United  States,  and  the  Indians  were 
to  remove  beyond  the  Mississippi.  Black  Hawk  refused  sub- 
mission, and  in  1832  appeared  with  a  thousand  men  ;  but  a 
force  was  raised  in  Illinois  which  destroyed,  dispersed,  or  made 
captive  the  whole  body.  —  ED. 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  17 

peril  of  his  own  life,  the  life  of  an  old  savage  who 
had  strayed  into  his  carnp. 

The  Slack  Hawk  war  over,  he  turned  to  politics. 
The  step  from  the  captaincy  of  a  volunteer  company 
to  a  candidacy  for  a  seat  in  the  legislature  seemed 
a  natural  one.  But  his  popularity,  although  great 
in  New  Salem,  had  not  spread  far  enough  over  the 
district,  and  he  was  defeated.  Then  the  wretched 
hand-to-mouth  struggle  began  again.  He  "  set  up  in 
store  business '  with  a  dissolute  partner,  who  drank 
whiskey  while  Lincoln  was  reading  books.  The  result 
was  a  disastrous  failure  and  a  load  of  debt.  There- 
upon he  became  a  deputy  surveyor,  and  was  appointed 
postmaster  of  New  Salem,  the  business  of  the  post- 
office  being  so  small  that  he  could  carry  the  incoming 
and  outgoing  mail  in  his  hat.  All  this  could  not  lift 
him  from  poverty,  and  his  surveying  instruments  and 
horse  and  saddle  were  sold  by  the  sheriff  for  debt. 

But  while  all  this  misery  was  upon  him,  his  ambi- 
tion rose  to  higher  aims.  He  walked  many  miles  to 
borrow  from  a  schoolmaster  a  grammar  with  which 
to  improve  his  language.  A  lawyer  lent  him  a  copy 
of  Blackstone,  and  he  began  to  study  law.  People 
would  look  wonderingly  at  the  grotesque  figure  lying 
in  the  grass,  "  with  his  feet  up  a  tree,"  or  sitting  on 
a  fence,  as,  absorbed  in  a  book,  he  learned  to  construct 
correct  sentences  and  made  himself  a  jurist.  At  once 
he  gained  a  little  practice,  pettifogging  before  a  jus- 
tice of  the  peace  for  friends,  without  expecting  a  fee. 
Judicial  functions,  too,  were  thrust  upon  him,  but 
only  at  horse-races  or  wrestling  matches,  where  his 
acknowledged  honesty  and  fairness  gave  his  verdicts 
undisputed  authority.  His  popularity  grew  apace, 
and  soon  he  could  be  a  candidate  for  the  legislature 


18  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

again.  Although  he  called  himself  a  Whig,  an  ardent 
admirer  of  Henry  Clay,  his  clever  stump  speeches 
won  him  the  election  in  the  strongly  Democratic 
district.  Then  for  the  first  time,  perhaps,  he  thought 
seriously  of  his  outward  appearance.  So  far  he  had 
been  content  with  a  garb  of  "  Kentucky  jeans,"  not 
seldom  ragged,  usually  patched,  and  always  shabby. 
Now  he  borrowed  some  money  from  a  friend  to  buy 
a  new  suit  of  clothes  —  "store  clothes"  —  fit  for  a 
Sangamon  County  statesman  ;  and  thus  adorned  he 
set  out  for  the  state  capital,  Vandalia,  to  take  his 
seat  among  the  lawmakers. 

His  legislative  career,  which  stretched  over  several 
sessions,  for  he  was  thrice  reflected,  in  1836,  1838, 
and  1840,  was  not  remarkably  brilliant.  He  did, 
indeed,  not  lack  ambition.  He  dreamed  even  of 
making  himself  "the  De  Witt  Clinton  of  Illinois," 
and  he  actually  distinguished  himself  by  zealous  and 
effective  work  in  those  "  log-rolling '  operations  by 
which  the  young  State  received  "  a  general  system  of 
internal  improvements '  in  the  shape  of  railroads, 
canals,  and  banks,  —  a  reckless  policy,  burdening  the 
State  with  debt,  and  producing  the  usual  crop  of 
political  demoralization,  but  a  policy  characteristic  of 
the  time  and  the  impatiently  enterprising  spirit  of  the 
Western  people.  Lincoln,  no  doubt  with  the  best 
intentions,  but  with  little  knowledge  of  the  subject, 
simply  followed  the  popular  current.  The  achieve- 
ment  in  which,  perhaps,  he  gloried  most  was  the 
removal  of  the  state  government  from  Vandalia  to 
Springfield,  —  one  of  those  triumphs  of  political  man- 
agement which  are  apt  to  be  the  pride  of  the  small 
politician's  statesmanship.  One  thing,  however,  he  did 
in  which  his  true  nature  asserted  itself,  and  which  gave 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  19 

distinct  promise  of  the  future  pursuit  of  high  aims. 
Against  an  overwhelming  preponderance  of  sentiment 
in  the  legislature,  followed  by  only  one  other  member, 
he  recorded  his  protest  against  a  proslavery  resolu- 
tion, —  that  protest  declaring  "  the  institution  of 
slavery  to  be  founded  on  both  injustice  and  bad 
policy."  This  was  not  only  the  irrepressible  voice  of 
his  conscience ;  it  was  true  moral  valor,  too ;  for  at 
that  time,  in  many  parts  of  the  West,  an  abolitionist 
was  regarded  as  little  better  than  a  horse-thief,  and 
even  "  Abe  Lincoln  "  would  hardly  have  been  forgiven 
his  anti-slavery  principles,  had  he  not  been  known 
as  such  an  "  uncommon  good  fellow."  But  here,  in 
obedience  to  the  great  conviction  of  his  life,  he  mani- 
fested his  courage  to  stand  alone,  —  that  courage 
which  is  the  first  requisite  of  leadership  in  a  great 
cause. 

Together  with  his  reputation  and  influence  as  a 
politician  grew  his  law  practice,  especially  after  he 
had  removed  from  New  Salem  to  Springfield,  and 
associated  himself  with  a  practitioner  of  good  stand- 
ing. He  had  now  at  last  won  a  fixed  position  in 
society.  He  became  a  successful  lawyer,  less,  indeed, 
by  his  learning  as  a  jurist  than  by  his  effectiveness  as 
an  advocate  and  by  the  striking  uprightness  of  his 
character;  and  it  may  truly  be  said  that  his  vivid 
sense  of  truth  and  justice  had  much  to  do  with  his 
effectiveness  as  a-n  advocate.  He  would  refuse  to  act 
as  the  attorney  even  of  personal  friends  when  he  saw 
the  right  on  the  other  side.  He  would  abandon  cases, 
even  during  trial,  when  the  testimony  convinced  him 
that  his  client  was  in  the  wrong.  He  would  dissuade 
those  who  sought  his  service  from  pursuing  an  obtain- 
able advantage  when  their  claims  seemed  to  him 


20  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

unfair.  Presenting  his  very  first  case  in  the  United 
States  Circuit  Court,  the  only  question  being  one 
D£  authority,  he  declared  that,  upon  careful  examina- 
tion, he  found  all  the  authorities  on  the  other  side, 
and  none  on  his.  Persons  accused  of  crime,  when  he 
thought  them  guilty,  he  would  not  defend  at  all,  or, 
attempting  their  defence,  he  was  unable  to  put  iorth 
his  powers.  One  notable  exception  is  on  record,  when 
his  personal  sympathies  had  been  strongly  aroused. 
But  when  he  felt  himself  to  be  the  protector  of  inno- 
cence, the  defender  of  justice,  or  the  prosecutor  of 
wrong,  he  frequently  disclosed  such  unexpected  re- 
sources of  reasoning,  such  depth  of  feeling,  and  rose  to 
such  fervor  of  appeal  as  to  astonish  and  overwhelm  his 
hearers  and  make  him  fairly  irresistible.  Even  an  ordi- 
nary law  argument,  coming  from  him,  seldom  failed  to 
produce  the  impression  that  he  was  profoundly  con- 
vinced of  the  soundness  of  his  position.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  mere  appearance  of  so  conscientious 
an  attorney  in  any  case  should  have  carried,  not  only 
to  juries,  but  even  to  judges,  almost  a  presumption  of 
right  on  his  side,  and  that  the  people  began  to  call 
him,  sincerely  meaning  it,  "  honest  Abe  Lincoln." 

In  the  mean  time  he  had  private  sorrows  and  trials 
of  a  painfully  afflicting  nature.  He  had  loved  and 
been  loved  by  a  fair  and  estimable  girl,  Ann  Rutledge, 
who  died  in  the  flower  of  her  youth  and  beauty,  and 
he  mourned  her  loss  with  such  intensity  of  grief  that 
his  friends  feared  for  his  reason.  Recovering  from 
his  morbid  depression,  he  bestowed  what  he  thought 
a  new  affection  upon  another  lady,  who  refused  him. 
And  finally,  moderately  prosperous  in  his  worldly 
affairs,  and  having  prospects  of  political  distinction 
before  him,  he  paid  his  addresses  to  Mary  Todd,  of 


SCHUnZ'S  ESSAY.  21 

Kentucky,  and  was  accepted.  But  then  tormenting 
doubts  of  the  genuineness  of  his  own  affection  for  her, 
of  the  compatibility  of  their  characters,  and  of  their 
future  happiness  came  upon  him.  His  distress  was  so 
great  that  he  felt  himself  in  danger  of  suicide,  and 
feared  to  carry  a  pocket-knife  with  him ;  and  he  gave 
mortal  offence  to  his  bride  by  not  appearing  on  the 
appointed  wedding  day.  Now  the  torturing  conscious- 
ness of  the  wrong  he  had  done  her  grew  unendurable 
He  won  back  her  affection,  ended  the  agony  by  marry- 
ing  her,  and  became  a  faithful  and  patient  husband 
and  a  good  father.  But  it  was  no  secret,  to  those  who 
knew  the  family  well,  that  his  domestic  life  was  full 
of  trials.  The  erratic  temper  of  his  wife  not  seldom 
put  the  gentleness  of  his  nature  to  the  severest  tests ; 
and  these  troubles  and  struggles,  which  accompanied 
him  through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  his  life  from  the 
modest  home  in  Springfield  to  the  White  House  at 
Washington,  adding  untold  private  heartburnings  to 
his  public  cares,  and  sometimes  precipitating  upon 
him  incredible  embarrassments  in  the  discharge  of  his 
public  duties,  form  one  of  the  most  pathetic  features 
of  his  career. 

He  continued  to  "ride  the  circuit,"  read  books 
while  travelling  in  his  buggy,  told  funny  stories  to  his 
fellow  lawyers  in  the  tavern,  chatted  familiarly  with 
his  neighbors  around  the  stove  in  the  store  and  at  the 
post-office,  had  his  hours  of  melancholy  brooding  as 
of  old,  and  became  more  and  more  widely  known  and 
trusted  and  beloved  among  the  people  of  his  State  for 
his  ability  as  a  lawyer  and  politician,  for  the  upright 
ness  of  his  character  and  the  ever-flowing  spring  of 
sympathetic  kindness  in  his  heart.  His  main  ambi- 
tion was  confessedly  that  of  political  distinction ;  but 


22  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

hardly  any  one  would  at  that  time  have  seen  in  h5m 
the  man  destined  to  lead  the  nation  through  the  great- 
est  crisis  of  the  century. 

His  time  had  not  yet  come  when,  in  1846,  he  was 
elected  to  Congress.  In  a  clever  speech  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  he  denounced  President  Polk  for 
having  unjustly  forced  war  upon  Mexico,  and  he 
amused  the  Committee  of  the  Whole  by  a  witty  at- 
tack upon  General  Cass.  More  important  was  the 
expression  he  gave  to  his  anti-slavery  impulses  by 
offering  a  bill  looking  to  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  and  by  his  repeated  votes 
for  the  famous  Wilmot  Proviso,  intended  to  exclude 
slavery  from  the  Territories  acquired  from  Mexico. 
But  when,  at  the  expiration  of  his  term,  in  March, 
1849,  he  left  his  seat,  he  gloomily  despaired  of  ever 
seeing  the  day  when  the  cause  nearest  to  his  heart 
would  be  rightly  grasped  by  the  people,  and  when  he 
would  be  able  to  render  any  service  to  his  country  in 
solving  the  great  problem.  Nor  had  his  career  as  a 
member  of  Congress  in  any  sense  been  such  as  to 
gratify  his  ambition.  Indeed,  if  he  ever  had  any  be- 
lief in  a  great  destiny  for  himself,  it  must  have  been 
weak  at  that  period ;  for  he  actually  sought  to  obtain 
from  the  new  Whig  President,  General  Taylor,  the 
place  of  Commissioner  of  the  General  Land  Office, 
willing  to  bury  himself  in  one  of  the  administrative 
bureaus  of  the  government.  Fortunately  for  the  coun- 
try, he  failed ;  and  no  less  fortunately,  when,  later, 
the  territorial  governorship  of  Oregon  was  offered  to 
him,  Mrs.  Lincoln's  protest  induced  him  to  decline 
it.  Returning  to  Springfield,  he  gave  himself  with 
renewed  zest  to  his  law  practice,  acquiesced  in  the 
Compromise  of  1850  with  reluctance  and  a  mental 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  23 

reservation,  supported  in  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1852  the  Whig  candidate  in  some  spiritless  speeches, 
and  took  but  a  languid  interest  in  the  politics  of  the 
day.  But  just  then  his  time  was  drawing  near. 

The  peace  promised,  and  apparently  inaugurated, 
by  the  Compromise  of  1850  was  rudely  broken  by 
the  introduction  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  in  1854. 
The  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  opening  the 
Territories  of  the  United  States,  the  heritage  of  com- 
ing generations,  to  the  invasion  of  slavery,  suddenly 
revealed  the  whole  significance  of  the  slavery  question 
to  the  people  of  the  free  States,  and  thrust  itself  into 
the  politics  of  the  country  as  the  paramount  issue. 
Something  like  an  electric  shock  flashed  through  the 
North.  Men  who  but  a  short  time  before  had  been 
absorbed  by  their  business  pursuits,  and  deprecated 
all  political  agitation,  were  startled  out  of  their  secu- 
rity by  a  sudden  alarm,  and  excitedly  took  sides. 
That  restless  trouble  of  conscience  about  slavery, 
which  even  in  times  of  apparent  repose  had  secretly 
disturbed  the  souls  of  Northern  people,  broke  forth 
in  an  utterance  louder  than  ever.  The  bonds  of  ac^ 
customed  party  allegiance  gave  way.  Anti-slaver}- 
Democrats  and  anti-slavery  Whigs  felt  themselves 
drawn  together  by  a  common  overpowering  sentiment, 
and  soon  they  began  to  rally  in  a  new  organization. 
The  Republican  party  sprang  into  being  to  meet 
the  overruling  call  of  the  hour.  Then  Abraham 
Lincoln's  time  was  come.  He  rapidly  advanced  to  a 
position  of  conspicuous  championship  in  the  struggle. 
This,  however,  was  not  owing  to  his  virtues  and  abili- 
ties alone.  Indeed,  the  slavery  question  stirred  his 
soul  in  its  profoundest  depths  ;  it  was,  as  one  of  his 
intimate  friends  said,  "  the  only  one  on  which  he 


24  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

would  become  excited  ; '  it  called  forth  all  his  facui 
ties  and  energies.  Yet  there  were  many  others  who, 
having  long  and  arduously  fought  the  anti-slavery 
battle  in  the  popular  assembly,  or  in  the  press,  or  in 
the  halls  of  Congress,  far  surpassed  him  in  prestige, 
and  compared  with  whom  he  was  still  an  obscure  and 
untried  man.  His  reputation,  although  highly  honor- 
able  and  well  earned,  had  so  far  been  essentially  local. 
As  a  stump-speaker  in  Whig  canvasses  outside  of  his 
State,  he  had  attracted  comparatively  little  attention ; 
but  in  Illinois  he  had  been  recognized  as  one  of  the 
foremost  men  of  the  Whig  party.  Among  the  oppo- 
nents of  the  Nebraska  bill  he  occupied  in  his  State  so 
important  a  position,  that  in  1854  he  was  the  choice 
of  a  large  majority  of  the  "Anti-Nebraska  men"  in 
the  legislature  for  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United 
States  which  then  became  vacant ;  and  when  he,  an 
old  Whig,  could  not  obtain  the  votes  of  the  Anti- 
Nebraska  Democrats  necessary  to  make  a  majority, 
he  generously  urged  his  friends  to  transfer  their  votes 
to  Lyman  Trumbull,  who  was  then  elected.  Two 
years  later,  in  the  first  national  convention  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  the  delegation  from  Illinois  brought 
him  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the  vice-presidency, 
and  he  received  respectable  support.  Still,  the  name 
of  Abraham  Lincoln  was  not  widely  known  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  his  own  State.  But  now  it  was  this 
local  prominence  in  Illinois  that  put  him  in  a  position 
of  peculiar  advantage  on  the  battlefield  of  national 
politics.  In  the  assault  on  the  Missouri  Compromise 
which  broke  down  all  legal  barriers  to  the  spread  of 
slavery,  Stephen  Arnold  Douglas  was  the  ostensible 
leader  and  central  figure  ;  and  Douglas  was  a  senator 
from  Illinois,  Lincoln's  State.  Douglas's  national 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  25 

theatre  of  action  was  the  Senate,  but  in  his  constitu- 
ency in  Illinois  were  the  roots  of  his  official  position 
and  power.  What  he  did  in  the  Senate  he  had  to 
justify  before  the  people  of  Illinois,  in  order  to  main- 
tain himself  in  place  ;  and  in  Illinois  all  eyes  turned 
to  Lincoln  as  Douglas's  natural  antagonist. 

As  very  young  men  they  had  come  to  Illinois,  Lin- 
coln from  Indiana,  Douglas  from  Vermont,  and  had 
grown  up  together  in  public  life,  Douglas  as  a  Demo- 
crat, Lincoln  as  a  Whig.  They  had  met  first  in  Van- 
dalia,  in  1834,  when  Lincoln  was  in  the  legislature 
and  Douglas  in  the  lobby ;  and  again  in  1836,  both 
as  members  of  the  legislature.  Douglas,  a  very  able 
politician,  of  the  agile,  combative,  audacious,  "  push- 
ing "  sort,  rose  in  political  distinction  with  remarkable 
rapidity.  In  quick  succession  he  became  a  member 
of  the  legislature,  a  State's  attorney,  Secretary  of 
State,  a  judge  on  the  supreme  bench  of  Illinois,  three 
times  a  representative  in  Congress,  and  a  senator  of 
the  United  States  when  only  thirty-nine  years  old. 
In  the  national  Democratic  convention  of  1852,  he 
appeared  even  as  an  aspirant  to  the  nomination  for 
the  presidency,  as  the  favorite  of  "  young  America," 
and  received  a  respectable  vote.  He  had  far  out- 
stripped Lincoln  in  what  is  commonly  called  political 
success  and  in  reputation.  But  it  had  frequently 
happened  that  in  political  campaigns  Lincoln  felt  him- 
self impelled,  or  was  selected  by  his  Whig  friends, 
to  answer  Douglas's  speeches ;  and  thus  the  two 
were  looked  upon,  in  a  large  part  of  the  State  at  least, 
as  the  representative  combatants  of  their  respective 
parties  in  the  debates  before  popular  meetings.  As 
soon,  therefore,  as,  after  the  passage  of  his  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill,  Douglas  returned  to  Illinois  to  defend 


26  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

his  cause  before  his  constituents,  Lincoln,  obeying  not 
only  his  own  impulse,  but  also  general  expectation, 
stepped  forward  as  his  principal  opponent.  Thus  the 
struggle  about  the  principles  involved  in  the  Kansas- 
Nebraska  bill,  or,  in  a  broader  sense,  the  struggle  be- 
tween freedom  and  slavery,  assumed  in  Illinois  the 
outward  form  of  a  personal  contest  between  Lincoln 
and  Douglas ;  and  as  it  continued  and  became  more 
animated,  that  personal  contest  in  Illinois  was  watched 
with  constantly  increasing  interest  by  the  whole  coun 
try.  When,  in  1858,  Douglas's  senatorial  term  bein& 
about  to  expire,  Lincoln  was  formally  designated  by 
the  .Republican  convention  of  Illinois  as  their  candi- 
date for  the  Senate,  to  take  Douglas's  place,  and  the 
two  contestants  agreed  to  debate  the  questions  at  issue 
face  to  face  in  a  series  of  public  meetings,  the  eyes  of 
the  whole  American  people  were  turned  eagerly  to  that 
one  point ;  and  the  spectacle  reminded  one  of  those 
lays  of  ancient  times  telling  of  two  armies,  in  battle 
array,  standing  still  to  see  their  two  principal  cham- 
pions fight  out  the  contested  cause  between  the  lines 
in  single  combat. 

Lincoln  had  then  reached  the  full  maturity  of  his 
powers.  His  equipment  as  a  statesman  did  not  em 
brace  a  comprehensive  knowledge  of  public  affairs 
What  he  had  studied  he  had  indeed  made  his  own9 
with  the  eager  craving  and  that  zealous  tenacity  char- 
acteristic of  superior  minds  learning  under  difficulties. 
But  his  narrow  opportunities  and  the  unsteady  life  ht 
had  led  during  his  younger  years  had  not  permitted 
the  accumulation  of  large  stores  in  his  mind.  It  is 
true,  in  political  campaigns  he  had  occasionally  spoken 
on  the  ostensible  issues  between  the  Whigs  and  the 
Democrats,  the  tariff,  internal  improvements,  banks, 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  27 

and  so  on,  but  only  in  a  perfunctory  manner.  Had 
he  ever  given  much  serious  thought  and  study  to  these 
subjects,  it  is  safe  to  assume  that  a  mind  so  prolific 
of  original  conceits  as  his  would  certainly  have  pro- 
duced some  utterance  upon  them  worth  remembering. 
His  soul  had  evidently  never  been  deeply  stirred  by 
such  topics.  But  when  his  moral  nature  was  aroused, 
his  brain  developed  an  untiring  activity  until  it  had 
mastered  all  the  knowledge  within  reach.  As  soon 
as  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  had  thrust 
the  slavery  question  into  politics  as  the  paramount 
issue,  Lincoln  plunged  into  an  arduous  study  of  all  its 
legal,  historical,  and  moral  aspects,  and  then  his  mind 
became  a  complete  arsenal  of  argument.  His  rich 
natural  gifts,  trained  by  long  and  varied  practice,  had 
made  him  an  orator  of  rare  persuasiveness.  In  his 
immature  days,  he  had  pleased  himself  for  a  short 
period  with  that  inflated,  high-flown  style  which, 
among  the  uncultivated,  passes  for  "  beautiful  speak- 
ing." His  inborn  truthfulness  and  his  artistic  instinct 
soon  overcame  that  aberration,  and  revealed  to  him 
the  noble  beauty  and  strength  of  simplicity.  He 
possessed  an  uncommon  power  of  clear  and  compact 
statement,  which  might  have  reminded  those  who  knew 
the  story  of  his  early  youth  of  the  efforts  of  the  poor 
boy,  when  he  copied  his  compositions  from  the  scraped 
wooden  shovel,  carefully  to  trim  his  expressions  in 
order  to  save  paper.  His  language  had  the  energy  of 
honest  directness,  and  he  was  a  master  of  logical  lucid- 
ity. He  loved  to  point  and  enliven  his  reasoning  by 
humorous  illustrations,  usually  anecdotes  of  Western 
life,  of  which  he  had  an  inexhaustible  store  at  his 
command.  These  anecdotes  had  not  seldom  a  flavor 
of  rustic  robustness  about  them,  but  he  used  them  witi 


28  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

great  effect,  while  amusing  the  audience,  to  give  life 
to  an  abstraction,  to  explode  an  absurdity,  to  clinch  an 
argument,  to  drive  home  an  admonition.  The  natural 
kindliness  of  his  tone,  softening  prejudice  and  dis- 
arming partisan  rancor,  would  often  open  to  his  rea- 
soning a  way  into  minds  most  unwilling  to  receive  it. 
Yet  his  greatest  power  consisted  in  the  charm  of 
dis  individuality.  That  charm  did  not,  in  the  ordi- 
fcary  way,  appeal  to  the  ear  or  to  the  eye.  His  voice 
was  not  melodious ;  rather  shrill  and  piercing,  espe- 
cially when  it  rose  to  its  high  treble  in  moments  of 
great  animation.  His  figure  was  unhandsome,  and 
the  action  of  his  unwieldy  limbs  awkward.  He  com- 
manded none  of  the  outward  graces  of  oratory  as  they 
are  commonly  understood.  His  charm  was  of  a  dif- 
ferent kind.  It  flowed  from  the  rare  depth  and  gen- 
uineness of  his  convictions  and  his  sympathetic  feel- 
ings. Sympathy  was  the  strongest  element  in  his 
nature.  One  of  his  biographers,  who  knew  him  before 
he  became  President,  says :  "  Lincoln's  compassion 
might  be  stirred  deeply  by  an  object  present,  but 
never  by  an  object  absent  and  unseen.  In  the  former 
case  he  would  most  likely  extend  relief,  with  little 
inquiry  into  the  merits  of  the  case,  because,  as  he 
expressed  it  himself,  it  '  took  a  pain  out  of  his  own 
heart.'  Only  half  of  this  is  correct.  It  is  certainly 
true  that  he  could  not  witness  any  individual  distress 
or  oppression,  or  any  kind  of  suffering,  without  feel- 
ing a  pang  of  pain  himself,  and  that  by  relieving  as 
much  as  he  could  the  suffering  of  others  he  put  an, 
end  to  his  own.  This  compassionate  impulse  to  help 
he  felt  not  only  for  human  beings,  but  for  every  liv- 
ing creature.  As  in  his  boyhood  he  angrily  reproved 
the  boys  who  tormented  a  wood  turtle  by  putting  a 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  29 

burning  coal  on  its  back,  so,  we  are  told,  he  would, 
when  a  mature  man,  on  a  journey,  dismount  from  his 
buggy  and  wade  waist-deep  in  mire  to  rescue  a  pig 
struggling  in  a  swamp.  Indeed,  appeals  to  his  com- 
passion were  so  irresistible  to  him,  and  he  felt  it  so 
difficult  to  refuse  anything  when  his  refusal  could  give 
pain,  that  he  himself  sometimes  spoke  of  his  inability 
to  say  "  no  "  as  a  positive  weakness.  But  that  cer- 
tainly does  not  prove  that  his  compassionate  feeling 
was  confined  to  individual  cases  of  suffering  witnessed 
with  his  own  eyes.  As  the  boy  was  moved  by  the  as- 
pect of  the  tortured  wood  turtle  to  compose  an  essay 
against  cruelty  to  animals  in  general,  so  the  aspect  of 
other  cases  of  suffering  and  wrong  wrought  up  his 
moral  nature,  and  set  his  mind  to  work  against  cruelty, 
injustice,  and  oppression  in  general. 

As  his  sympathy  went  forth  to  others,  it  attracted 
others  to  him.  Especially  those  whom  he  called  the 
"  plain  people  "  felt  themselves  drawn  to  him  by  the 
instinctive  feeling  that  he  understood,  esteemed,  and 
appreciated  them.  He  had  grown  up  among  the 
poor,  the  lowly,  the  ignorant.  He  never  ceased  to  re- 
member the  good  souls  he  had  met  among  them,  and 
the  many  kindnesses  they  had  done  him.  Although 
in  his  mental  development  he  had  risen  far  above 
them,  he  never  looked  down  upon  them.  How  they 
felt  and  how  they  reasoned  he  knew,  for  so  he  had 
once  felt  and  reasoned  himself.  How  they  could  be 
moved  he  knew,  for  so  he  had  once  been  moved  him- 
self, and  he  practised  moving  others.  His  mind  was 
much  larger  than  theirs,  but  it  thoroughly  compre- 
hended theirs  ;  and  while  he  thought  much  farther 
than  they,  their  thoughts  were  ever  present  to  him- 
Nor  had  the  visible  distance  between  them  grown  as 


30  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN*. 

wide  as  his  rise  in  the  world  would  seem  to  have 
warranted.  Much  of  his  backwoods  speech  and  man- 
ners still  clung  to  him.  Although  he  had  become 
"  Mr.  Lincoln  '  to  his  later  acquaintances,  he  was 
still  "  Abe  "  to  the  "  Nats  "  and  "  Billys  "  and 
"  Daves  "  of  his  youth  :  and  their  familiarity  neither 
appeared  unnatural  to  them,  nor  was  it  in  the  least 
awkward  to  him.  He  still  told  and  enjoyed  stories 
similar  to  those  he  had  told  and  enjoyed  in  the  In- 
diana  settlement  and  at  New  Salem.  His  wants 
remained  as  modest  as  they  had  ever  been  ;  his  do- 
mestic habits  had  by  no  means  completely  accom- 
modated themselves  to  those  of  his  more  high-born 
wife ;  and  though  the  "  Kentucky  jeans  "  apparel  had 
long  been  dropped,  his  clothes  of  better  material  and 
better  make  would  sit  ill  sorted  on  his  gigantic  limbs. 
His  cotton  umbrella,  without  a  handle,  and  tied  to- 
gether with  a  coarse  string  to  keep  it  from  flapping, 
which  he  carried  on  his  circuit  rides,  is  said  to  be  re- 
membered still  by  some  of  his  surviving  neighbors. 
This  rusticity  of  habit  was  utterly  free  from  that 
affected  contempt  of  refinement  and  comfort  which 
self-made  men  sometimes  carry  into  their  more  afflu- 
ent circumstances.  To  Abraham  Lincoln  it  was  en- 
tirely natural,  and  all  those  who  came  into  contact 
with  him  knew  it  to  be  so.  In  his  ways  of  thinking 
and  feeling  he  had  become  a  gentleman  in  the  highest 
sense,  but  the  refining  process  had  polished  but  little 
the  outward  form.  The  plain  people,  therefore,  stilJ 
considered  "  honest  Abe  Lincoln  "  one  of  themselves ; 
and  when  they  felt,  which  they  no  doubt  frequently 
did,  that  his  thoughts  and  aspirations  moved  in  a 
sphere  above  their  own,  they  were  all  the  more  proud 
of  him,  without  any  diminution  of  fellow  feeling.  It 


SCHUKZ'S  ESSAY.  31 

was  this  relation  of  mutual  sympathy  and  understand* 
ing  between  Lincoln  and  the  plain  people  that  gave 
him  his  peculiar  power  as  a  public  man,  and  singu- 
larly  fitted  him,  as  we  shall  see,  for  that  leadership 
which  was  preeminently  required  in  the  great  crisis 
then  coming  on,  —  the  leadership  which  indeed  thinks 
and  moves  ahead  of  the  masses,  but  always  remains 
within  sight  and  sympathetic  touch  of  them. 

He  entered  upon  the  campaign  of  1858  better 
equipped  than  he  had  ever  been  before.  He  not 
only  instinctively  felt,  but  he  had  convinced  himself 
by  arduous  study,  that  in  this  struggle  against  the 
spread  of  slavery  he  had  right,  justice,  philosophy,  the 
enlightened  opinion  of  mankind,  history,  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  good  policy  on  his  side.  It  was  observed 
that  after  he  began  to  discuss  the  slavery  question  his 
speeches  were  pitched  in  a  much  loftier  key  than  his 
former  oratorical  efforts.  While  he  remained  fond  of 
telling  funny  stories  in  private  conversation,  they  dis- 
appeared more  and  more  from  his  public  discourse. 
He  would  still  now  and  then  point  his  argument  with 
expressions  of  inimitable  quaintness,  and  flash  out 
rays  of  kindly  humor  and  witty  irony  ;  but  his  general 
tone  was  serious,  and  rose  sometimes  to  genuine  so- 
lemnity. His  masterly  skill  in  dialectical  thrust  and 
parry,  his  wealth  of  knowledge,  his  power  of  reason* 
ing,  and  elevation  of  sentiment,  disclosed  in  language 
of  rare  precision,  strength,  and  beauty,  not  seldom 
astonished  his  old  friends. 

Neither  of  the  two  champions  could  have  found  a 
more  formidable  antagonist  than  each  now  met  in  the 
other.  Douglas  was  by  far  the  most  conspicuous 
member  of  his  party.  His  admirers  had  dubbed  him 
44  the  little  giant,"  contrasting  in  that  nickname  the 


32  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

greatness  of  his  mind  with  the  smallness  of  his  body, 
But  though  of  low  stature,  his  broad-shouldered  figure 
appeared  uncommonly  sturdy,  and  there  was  some- 
thing lion-like  in  the  squareness  of  his  brow  and  jaws 
and  in  the  defiant  shake  of  his  long  hair.  His  loud 
and  persistent  advocacy  of  territorial  expansion,  in 
the  name  (yf  patriotism  and  "  manifest  destiny,"  had 
given  him  an  enthusiastic  following  among  the  young 
and  ardent.  Great  natural  parts,  a  highly  combative 
temperament,  and  long  training  had  made  him  a  de- 
bater unsurpassed  in  a  Senate  filled  with  able  men. 
He  could  be  as  forceful  in  his  appeals  to  patriotic  feel- 
ings as  he  was  fierce  in  denunciation  and  thoroughly 
skilled  in  all  the  baser  tricks  of  parliamentary  pugil 
ism.  While  genial  and  rollicking  in  his  social  inter- 
course, —  the  idol  of  the  "  boys,"  —  he  felt  himself 
one  of  the  most  renowned  statesmen  of  his  time,  and 
would  frequently  meet  his  opponents  with  an  over- 
bearing haughtiness,  as  persons  more  to  be  pitied  than 
to  be  feared.  In  his  speech  opening  the  campaign  of 
1858,  he  spoke  of  Lincoln,  whom  the  Republicans 
had  dared  to  advance  as  their  candidate  for  "  his ' 
place  in  the  Senate,  with  an  air  of  patronizing  if  not 
contemptuous  condescension,  as  "  a  kind,  amiable,  and 
intelligent  gentleman  and  a  good  citizen."  The  little 
giant  would  have  been  pleased  to  pass  off  his  antago- 
nist as  a  tall  dwarf.  He  knew  Lincoln  too  well,  how- 
ever,  to  indulge  himself  seriously  in  such  a  delusion. 
But  the  political  situation  was  at  that  moment  in  a 
curious  tangle,  and  Douglas  could  expect  to  derive 
from  the  confusion  great  advantage  over  his  opponent. 
By  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  opening 
the  Territories  to  the  ingress  of  slavery,  Douglas  had 
pleased  the  South,  but  greatly  alarmed  thp  North. 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY. 

He  had  sought  to  conciliate  Northern  sentiment 
appending  to  his  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  the  declaration 
that  its  intent  was  "  not  to  legislate  slavery  into  any 
State  or  Territory,  nor  to  exclude  it  therefrom,  but  tc 
leave  the  people  thereof  perfectly  free  to  form  and 
regulate  their  institutions  in  their  own  way,  subject 
only  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States."  This 
he  called  "  the  great  principle  of  popular  sovereignty." 
When  asked  whether,  under  this  act,  the  people  of  a 
Territory,  before  its  admission  as  a  State,  would  have 
the  right  to  exclude  slavery,  he  answered,  "That 
is  a  question  for  the  courts  to  decide."  Then  came 
the  famous  "  Dred  Scott  decision,"  in  which  the  Su- 
preme Court  held  substantially  that  the  right  to  hold 
slaves  as  property  existed  in  the  Territories  by  virtue 
of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  that  this  right  could 
not  be  denied  by  any  act  of  a  territorial  government. 
This,  of  course,  denied  the  right  of  the  people  of  anj 
Territory  to  exclude  slavery  while  they  were  in  a  terri 
torial  condition,  and  it  alarmed  the  Northern  people 
still  more.  Douglas  recognized  the  binding  force  of 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court,  at  the  same  time 
maintaining,  most  illogically,  that  his  great  principle 
of  popular  sovereignty  remained  in  force  nevertheless. 
Meanwhile,  the  pro-slavery  people  of  western  Missouri, 
the  so-called  "  border  ruffians,"  had  invaded  Kansas, 
set  up  a  constitutional  convention,  made  a  constitution 
of  an  extreme  pro-slavery  type,  the  "  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution," refused  to  submit  it  fairly  to  a  vote  of  the 
people  of  Kansas,  and  then  referred  it  to  Congress  for 
acceptance,  —  seeking  thus  to  accomplish  the  admission 
of  Kansas  as  a  slave  State.  Had  Douglas  supported 
such  a  scheme,  he  would  have  lost  all  foothold  in  the 
North.  In  the  name  of  popular  sovereignty  he  loudly 


84  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

declared  his  opposition  to  the  acceptance  of  any  consti 
tution  not  sanctioned  by  a  formal  popular  vote.  He 
"  did  not  care,"  lie  said,  "  whether  slavery  be  voted  up 
or  down,"  but  there  must  be  a  fair  vote  of  the  people. 
Thus  he  drew  upon  himself  the  hostility  of  the  Buch- 
anan administration,  which  was  controlled  by  the  pro- 
slavery  interest,  but  he  saved  his  Northern  follow- 
ing. More  than  this,  not  only  did  his  Democratic 
admirers  now  call  him  "  the  true  champion  of  free- 
dom," but  even  some  Republicans  of  large  influence, 
prominent  among  them  Horace  Greeley,  sympathizing 
with  Douglas  in  his  fight  against  the  Lecompton  Con- 
stitution, and  hoping  to  detach  him  permanently  from 
the  pro-slavery  interest  and  to  force  a  lasting  breach 
in  the  Democratic  party,  seriously  advised  the  Republi- 
cans of  Illinois  to  give  up  their  opposition  to  Douglas, 
and  to  help  reelect  him  to  the  Senate.  Lincoln  was 
not  of  that  opinion.  He  believed  that  great  popular 
movements  can  succeed  only  when  guided  by  their 
faithful  friends,  and  that  the  anti-slavery  cause  could 
not  safely  be  intrusted  to  the  keeping  of  one  who 
"  did  not  care  whether  slavery  be  voted  up  or  down." 
This  opinion  prevailed  in  Illinois  ;  but  the  influences 
within  the  Republican  party,  over  which  it  prevailed, 
yielded  only  a  reluctant  acquiescence,  if  they  acqui- 
esced at  all,  after  having  materially  strengthened 
Douglas's  position.  Such  was  the  situation  of  things 
when  the  campaign  of  1858  between  Lincoln  and 
Douglas  began. 

Lincoln  opened  the  campaign  on  his  side,  at  the 
convention  which  nominated  him  as  the  Republican 
candidate  for  the  senator  ship,  with  a  memorable  say- 
ing which  sounded  like  a  shout  from  the  watch-tower 
of  history :  "  A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  35 

stand.  I  believe  this  government  cannot  endure  per- 
manently half  slave  and  half  free.  I  do  not  expect 
the  Union  to  be  dissolved.  I  do  not  expect  the  house 
to  fall,  but  I  expect  it  will  cease  to  be  divided.  It 
will  become  all  one  thing  or  all  the  other.  Either  the 
opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest  the  further  spread  of 
it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind  shall  rest  in  the 
belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  extinction ; 
or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward,  till  it  shall 
become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  —  old  as  well  as 
new,  North  as  well  as  South."  Then  he  proceeded  to 
point  out  that  the  Nebraska  doctrine  combined  with 
the  Dred  Scott  decision  worked  in  the  direction  of 
making  the  nation  "  all  slave."  Here  was  the  "  irre- 
pressible conflict"  spoken  of  by  Seward  a  short  time 
later,  in  a  speech  made  famous  mainly  by  that  phrase, 
If  there  was  any  new  discovery  in  it,  the  right  of  pri- 
ority  was  Lincoln's.  This  utterance  proved  not  only 
his  statesmanlike  conception  of  the  issue,  but  also,  in 
his  situation  as  a  candidate,  the  firmness  of  his  moral 
courage.  The  friends  to  whom  he  had  read  the 
draught  of  this  speech  before  he  delivered  it  warned 
him  anxiously  that  its  delivery  might  be  fatal  to  his 
success  in  the  election.  This  was  shrewd  advice, 
in  the  ordinary  sense.  While  a  slaveholder  could 
threaten  disunion  with  impunity,  the  mere  suggestion 
that  the  existence  of  slavery  was  incompatible  with 
freedom  in  the  Union  would  hazard  the  political 
chances  of  any  public  man  in  the  North.  But  Lin- 
coln was  inflexible.  "  It  is  true,"  said  he,  "  and  I 
will  deliver  it  as  written.  ...  I  would  rather  be  de- 
feated with  these  expressions  in  my  speech  held  up 
and  discussed  before  the  people  than  be  victorious 
without  them."  The  statesman  was  right  in  his  far- 


86  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

seeing  judgment  and  his  conscientious  statement  of 
the  truth,  but  the  practical  politicians  were  also  right 
in  their  prediction  of  the  immediate  effect.  Douglas 
instantly  seized  upon  the  declaration  that  a  house 
divided  against  itself  cannot  stand  as  the  main  objec- 
tive point  of  his  attack,  interpreting  it  as  an  incite- 
ment to  a  "  relentless  sectional  war,"  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  persistent  reiteration  of  this  charge 
served  to  frighten  not  a  few  timid  souls. 

Lincoln  constantly  endeavored  to  bring  the  moral 
and  philosophical  side  of  the  subject  to  the  fore- 
ground. "  Slavery  is  wrong  "  was  the  keynote  of  all 
his  speeches.  To  Douglas's  glittering  sophism  that 
the  right  of  the  people  of  a  Territory  to  have  slavery 
or  not,  as  they  might  desire,  was  in  accordance  with 
the  principle  of  true  popular  sovereignty,  he  made  the 
pointed  answer :  "  Then  true  popular  sovereignty, 
according  to  Senator  Douglas,  means  that,  when  one 
man  makes  another  man  his  slave,  no  third  man  diall 
be  allowed  to  object."  To  Douglas's  argument  that 
the  principle  which  demanded  that  the  people  of  a 
Territory  should  be  permitted  to  choose  whether  they 
would  have  slavery  or  not  "originated  when  God  made 
man,  and  placed  good  and  evil  before  him,  allowing 
him  to  choose  upon  his  own  responsibility,"  Lincoln 
solemnly  replied  :  "  No ;  God  did  not  place  good  and 
evil  before  man,  telling  him  to  make  his  choice.  On 
the  contrary,  God  did  tell  him  there  was  one  tree  of 
the  fruit  of  which  he  should  not  eat,  upon  pain  of 
death."  He  did  not,  however,  place  himself  on  the 
most  advanced  ground  taken  by  the  radical  anti-sla- 
very men.  He  admitted  that,  under  the  Constitution, 
"  the  Southern  people  were  entitled  to  a  congressional 
fugitive  slave  law,"  although  he  did  not  approve  the 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  37 

fugitive  slave  law  then  existing.  He  declared  also 
that,  if  slavery  were  kept  out  of  the  Territories  dur- 
ing their  territorial  existence,  as  it  should  be,  and  if 
then  the  people  of  any  Territory,  having  a  fair  chance 
and  a  clear  field,  should  do  such  an  extraordinary 
thing  as  to  adopt  a  slave  constitution,  uninfluenced 
by  the  actual  presence  of  the  institution  among  thenx 
he  saw  no  alternative  but  to  admit  such  a  Territory 
into  the  Union.  He  declared  further  that,  while  he 
should  be  exceedingly  glad  to  see  slavery  abolished 
in  the  District  of  Columbia,  he  would,  as  a  member 
of  Congress,  with  his  present  views,  not  endeavor 
to  bring  on  that  abolition  except  on  condition  that 
emancipation  be  gradual,  that  it  be  approved  by  the 
decision  of  a  majority  of  voters  in  the  District,  and 
that  compensation  be  made  to  unwilling  owners.  On 
every  available  occasion,  he  pronounced  himself  in 
favor  of  the  deportation  and  colonization  of  the 
blacks,  of  course  with  their  consent.  He  repeatedly 
disavowed  any  wish  on  his  part  to  have  social  and  po- 
litical equality  established  between  whites  and  blacks. 
On  this  point  he  summed  up  his  views  in  a  reply  to 
Douglas's  assertion  that  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, in  speaking  of  all  men  as  being  created  equal, 
did  not  include  the  negroes,  saying :  "  I  do  not  under- 
stand the  Declaration  of  Independence  to  mean  that 
all  men  were  created  equal  in  all  respects.  They  are 
not  equal  in  color.  But  I  believe  that  it  does  mean 
to  declare  that  all  men  are  equal  in  some  respects ; 
they  are  equal  in  their  right  to  life,  liberty,  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness." 

With  regard  to  some  of  these  subjects  Lincoln 
modified  his  position  at  a  later  period,  and  it  has  been 
suggested  that  he  would  have  professed  more  advance.*} 


88  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

principles  in  his  debates  with  Douglas,  had  he  not 
feared  thereby  to  lose  votes.  This  view  can  hardly 
be  sustained.  Lincoln  had  the  courage  of  his  opin- 
ions, but  he  was  not  a  radical.  The  man  who  risked 
his  election  by  delivering,  against  the  urgent  protest 
of  his  friends,  the  speech  about  "  the  house  divided 
against  itself  '  would  not  have  shrunk  from  the  ex- 
pression of  more  extreme  views,  had  he  really  enter- 
tained them.  It  is  only  fair  to  assume  that  he  said 
what  at  the  time  he  really  thought,  and  that  if,  subse- 
quently, his  opinions  changed,  it  was  owing  to  new 
conceptions  of  good  policy  and  of  duty  brought  forth 
by  an  entirely  new  set  of  circumstances  and  exigen- 
cies. It  is  characteristic  that  he  continued  to  adhere 
to  the  impracticable  colonization  plan  even  after  the 
Emancipation  Proclamation  had  already  been  issued. 
But  in  this  contest  Lincoln  proved  himself  not 
only  a  debater,  but  also  a  political  strategist  of  the 
first  order.  The  "  kind,  amiable,  and  intelligent 
gentleman,"  as  Douglas  had  been  pleased  to  call 
him,  was  by  no  means  as  harmless  as  a  dove.  He  pos- 
sessed an  uncommon  share  of  that  worldly  shrewdness 
which  not  seldom  goes  with  genuine  simplicity  of 
character ;  and  the  political  experience  gathered  in 
the  legislature  and  in  Congress  and  in  many  election 
campaigns,  added  to  his  keen  intuitions,  had  made 
him  as  far-sighted  a  judge  of  the  probable  effects  of 
a  public  man's  sayings  or  doings  upon  the  popular 
mind,  and  as  accurate  a  calculator  in  estimating  polit- 
ical chances  and  forecasting  results,  as  could  be  found 
among  the  party  managers  in  Illinois.  And  now  he 
perceived  keenly  the  ugly  dilemma  in  which  Douglas 
found  himself,  between  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  which 
declared  the  right  to  hold  slaves  to  exist  in  the  Terri- 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  89 

tories  by  virtue  of  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  his 
"  great  principle  of  popular  sovereignty,"  according 
to  which  the  people  of  a  Territory,  if  they  saw  fit, 
were  to  have  the  right  to  exclude  slavery  therefrom. 
Douglas  was  twisting  and  squirming  to  the  best  of 
his  ability  to  avoid  the  admission  that  the  two  were 
incompatible.  The  question  then  presented  itself  if 
it  would  be  good  policy  for  Lincoln  to  force  Douglas 
to  a  clear  expression  of  his  opinion  as  to  whether,  the 
Dred  Scott  decision  notwithstanding,  "  the  people  of 
a  Territory  could  in  any  lawful  way  exclude  slavery 
from  its  limits  prior  to  the  formation  of  a  state  con- 
stitution." Lincoln  foresaw  and  predicted  what  Doug- 
las would  answer :  that  slavery  could  not  exist  in 
a  Territory  unless  the  people  desired  it  and  gave  it 
protection  by  territorial  legislation.  In  an  impro- 
vised caucus  the  policy  of  pressing  the  interrogatory 
on  Douglas  was  discussed.  Lincoln's  friends  unani- 
mously advised  against  it,  because  the  answer  fore- 
seen would  sufficiently  commend  Douglas  to  the  peo- 
ple of  Illinois  to  insure  his  reelection  to  the  Senate. 
But  Lincoln  persisted.  "  I  am  after  larger  game," 
said  he.  "  If  Douglas  so  answers,  he  can  never  be 
President,  and  the  battle  of  1860  is  worth  a  hundred 
of  this."  The  interrogatory  was  pressed  upon  Doug- 
las, and  Douglas  did  answer  that,  no  matter  what 
the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  might  be  on  the 
abstract  question,  the  people  of  a  Territory  had  the 
lawful  means  to  introduce  or  exclude  slavery  by  terri- 
torial legislation  friendly  or  unfriendly  to  the  institu- 
tion. Lincoln  found  it  easy  to  show  the  absurdity  of 
the  proposition  that,  if  slavery  were  admitted  to  exist 
of  right  in  the  Territories  by  virtue  of  the  supreme 
law,  the  Federal  Constitution,  it  could  be  kept  out 


40  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

or  expelled  by  an  inferior  law,  one  made  by  a  terri 
torial  legislature.  Again  the  judgment  of  the  poli- 
ticians, having  only  the  nearest  object  in  view,  proved 
correct:  Douglas  was  reflected  to  the  Senate.  But 
Lincoln's  judgment  proved  correct  also:  Douglas,  by 
resorting  to  the  expedient  of  his  "  unfriendly  legisla- 
tion doctrine,"  forfeited  his  last  chance  of  becoming 
President  of  the  United  States.  He  might  have 
hoped  to  win,  by  sufficient  atonement,  his  pardon 
from  the  South  for  his  opposition  to  the  Lecomptoii 
Constitution  ;  but  that  he  taught  the  people  of  the 
Territories  a  trick  by  which  they  could  defeat  what 
the  pro-slavery  men  considered  a  constitutional  right, 
and  that  he  called  that  trick  lawful,  —  this  the  slave 
power  would  never  forgive.  The  breach  between  the 
Southern  and  the  Northern  democracy  was  thence- 
forth irremediable  and  fatal. 

The  presidential  election  of  1860  approached.  The 
struggle  in  Kansas,  and  the  debates  in  Congress 
which  accompanied  it,  and  which  not  unfrequently 
provoked  violent  outbursts,  continually  stirred  the 
popular  excitement.  Within  the  Democratic  party 
raged  the  war  of  factions.  The  national  Democratic 
convention  met  at  Charleston  on  the  23d  of  April, 
1860.  After  a  struggle  of  ten  days  between  the  ad- 
herents and  the  opponents  of  Douglas,  during  which 
the  delegates  from  the  cotton  States  had  withdrawn, 
the  convention  adjourned  without  having  nominated 
any  candidates,  to  meet  again  in  Baltimore  on  the 
18th  of  June.  There  was  no  prospect,  however,  of 
reconciling  the  hostile  elements.  It  appeared  very 
probable  that  the  Baltimore  convention  would  nomi- 
nate Douglas,  while  the  seceding  Southern  Democrats 
would  set  up  a  candidate  of  their  own,  representing 
axtreme  pro-slavery  principles. 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  41 

Meanwhile,  the  national  Republican  convention  as- 
sembled at  Chicago  on  the  16th  of  May,  full  of  enthu- 
siasm and  hope.  The  situation  was  easily  understood. 
The  Democrats  would  have  the  South.  In  order  to 
succeed  in  the  election,  the  Republicans  had  to  win, 
in  addition  to  the  States  carried  by  Fremont  in  1856, 
those  that  were  classed  as  "  doubtful,"  —  New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania,  and  Indiana,  or  Illinois  in  the  place 
of  either  New  Jersey  or  Indiana.  The  most  eminent 
Republican  statesmen  and  leaders  of  the  time  thought 
of  for  the  presidency  were  Seward  and  Chase,  both 
regarded  as  belonging  to  the  more  advanced  order  of 
anti-slavery  men.  Of  the  two,  Seward  had  the  largest 
following,  mainly  from  New  York,  New  England,  and 
the  Northwest.  Cautious  politicians  doubted  seri- 
ously whether  Seward,  to  whom  some  phrases  in  his 
speeches  had  undeservedly  given  the  reputation  of  a 
reckless  radical,  would  be  able  to  command  the  whole 
Republican  vote  in  the  doubtful  States.  Besides, 
during  his  long  public  career  he  had  made  enemies. 
It  was  evident  that  those  who  thought  Seward's  nomi- 
nation too  hazardous  an  experiment  would  consider 
Chase  unavailable  for  the  same  reason.  They  would 
then  look  round  for  an  "  available  '  man  ;  and 
among  the  "  available '  men  Abraham  Lincoln  was 
easily  discovered  to  stand  foremost.  His  great  debate 
with  Douglas  had  given  him  a  national  reputation. 
The  people  of  the  East  being  eager  to  see  the  hero  of 
so  dramatic  a  contest,  he  had  been  induced  to  visit 
several  Eastern  cities,  and  had  astonished  and  de- 
lighted large  and  distinguished  audiences  with  speeches 
of  singular  power  and  originality.  An  address  deliv- 
ered by  him  in  the  Cooper  Institute  in  New  York, 
before  an  audience  containing  a  large  number  of  im- 


42  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

portant  persons,  was  then,  and  has  ever  since  been 
especially  praised  as  one  of  the  most  logical  and  con< 
vincing  political  speeches  ever  made  in  this  country. 
The  people  of  the  West  had  grown  proud  of  him  as 
a  distinctively  Western  great  man,  and  his  popularity 
at  home  had  some  peculiar  features  which  could  be 
expected  to  exercise  a  potent  charm.  Nor  was  Lin- 
coln's name  as  that  of  an  available  candidate  left  to 
the  chance  of  accidental  discovery.  It  is  indeed  not 
probable  that  he  thought  of  himself  as  a  presidential 
possibility,  during  his  contest  with  Douglas  for  the 
senatorship.  As  late  as  April,  1859,  he  had  written 
to  a  friend  who  had  approached  him  on  the  subject 
that  he  did  not  think  himself  fit  for  the  presidency. 
The  vice-presidency  was  then  the  limit  of  his  ambi- 
tion. But  some  of  his  friends  in  Illinois  took  the 
matter  seriously  in  hand,  and  Lincoln,  after  some 
Hesitation,  then  formally  authorized  "  the  use  of  his 
name."  The  matter  was  managed  with  such  energy 
and  excellent  judgment  that  in  the  convention  he 
had  not  only  the  whole  vote  of  Illinois  to  start  with, 
but  won  votes  on  all  sides  without  offending  any 
rival.  A  large  majority  of  the  opponents  of  Seward 
went  over  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  and  gave  him  the 
nomination  on  the  third  ballot.  As  had  been  fore- 
seen, Douglas  was  nominated  by  one  wing  of  the 
Democratic  party  at  Baltimore,  while  the  extreme 
pro-slavery  wing  put  Breckinridge  into  the  field  as 
its  candidate.  After  a  campaign  conducted  with  the 
energy  of  genuine  enthusiasm  on  the  anti-slavery 
side,  the  united  Republicans  defeated  the  divided 
Democrats,  and  Lincoln  was  elected  President  by  a 
majority  of  fifty-seven  votes  in  the  electoral  colleges. 
The  result  of  the  election  had  hardly  been  declared 


SCHURZ'S  ESS A^ 

when  the  disunion  movement  in  the  South,  long 
threatened  and  carefully  planned  and  prepared,  broke 
out  in  the  shape  of  open  revolt,  and  nearly  a  month 
before  Lincoln  could  be  inaugurated  as  President  of 
the  United  States,  seven  Southern  States  had  adopted 
ordinances  of  secession,  formed  an  independent  con- 
federacy, framed  a  constitution  for  it,  and  elected 
Jefferson  Davis  its  president,  expecting  the  other 
slaveholding  States  soon  to  join  them.  On  the  llth 
of  February,  1861,  Lincoln  left  Springfield  for  Wash- 
ington ;  having,  with  characteristic  simplicity,  asked 
his  law  partner  not  to  change  the  sign  of  the  firm 
"  Lincoln  and  Herndon  "  during  the  four  years'  una- 
voidable absence  of  the  senior  partner,  and  having 
taken  an  affectionate  and  touching  leave  of  his  neigh- 
bors. 

The  situation  which  confronted  the  new  President 
was  appalling :  the  larger  part  of  the  South  in  open 
rebellion,  the  rest  of  the  slaveholding  States  wavering, 
preparing  to  follow ;  the  revolt  guided  by  determined, 
daring,  and  skilful  leaders ;  the  Southern  people, 
apparently  full  of  enthusiasm  and  military  spirit, 
rushing  to  arms,  some  of  the  forts  and  arsenals  already 
in  their  possession  ;  the  government  of  the  Union, 
before  the  accession  of  the  new  President,  in  the 
hands  of  men  some  of  whom  actively  sympathized 
with  the  revolt,  while  others  were  hampered  by  their 
traditional  doctrines  in  dealing  with  it,  and  really 
gave  it  aid  and  comfort  by  their  irresolute  attitude ; 
all  the  departments  full  of  "  Southern  sympathizers  ' 
and  honeycombed  with  disloyalty  ;  the  treasury  empty, 
and  the  public  credit  at  the  lowest  ebb;  the  arsenals 
ill  supplied  with  arms,  if  not  emptied  by  treacherous 
practices  ;  the  regular  army  of  insignificant  strength* 


44  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

dispersed  over  an  immense  surface,  and  deprived  by 
defection  of  some  of  its  best  officers ;  the  navy  small 
and  antiquated.  But  that  was  not  all.  The  threat  of 
disunion  had  so  often  been  resorted  to  by  the  slave 
power  in  years  gone  by  that  most  Northern  people 
had  ceased  to  believe  in  its  seriousness.  But  when 
disunion  actually  appeared  as  a  stern  reality,  some' 
thing  like  a  chill  swept  through  the  whole  Northern 
country.  A  cry  for  union  and  peace  at  any  price 
rose  on  all  sides.  Democratic  partisanship  reiterated 
this  cry  with  vociferous  vehemence,  and  even  many 
Republicans  grew  afraid  of  the  victory  they  had  just 
achieved  at  the  ballot-box,  and  spoke  of  compromise. 
The  country  fairly  resounded  with  the  noise  of  "  anti- 
coercion  meetings."  Expressions  of  firm  resolution 
from  determined  anti-slavery  men  were  indeed  not 
wanting,  but  they  were  for  a  while  almost  drowned  by 
a  bewildering  confusion  of  discordant  voices.  Even 
this  was  not  all.  Potent  influences  in  Europe,  with 
an  ill-concealed  desire  for  the  permanent  disruption  of 
the  American  Union,  eagerly  espoused  the  cause  of 
the  Southern  seceders,  and  the  two  principal  maritime 
powers  of  the  Old  World  seemed  only  to  be  waiting 
for  a  favorable  opportunity  to  lend  them  a  helping 
hand. 

This  was  the  state  of  things  to  be  mastered  by 
"honest  Abe  Lincoln  "  when  he  took  his  seat  in  the 
presidential  chair,  —  "honest  Abe  Lincoln,"  who  was 
so  good  natured  that  he  could  not  say  "  no ; '  the 
greatest  achievement  in  whose  life  had  been  a  debate 
on  the  slavery  question  ;  who  had  never  been  in  any 
position  of  power ;  who  was  without  the  slightest  ex- 
perience of  high  executive  duties,  and  who  had  only 
ft  speaking  acquaintance  with  the  men  upon  whose 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  46 

counsel  and  cooperation  he  was  to  depend.  Nor  was 
his  accession  to  power  under  such  circumstances 
greeted  with  general  confidence  even  by  the  members 
of  his  party.  While  he  had  indeed  won  much  popu- 
larity, many  Republicans,  especially  among  those  who 
had  advocated  Se ward's  nomination  for  the  presi- 
dency, with  a  feeling  little  short  of  dismay,  saw  the 
simple  "Illinois  lawyer'1  take  the  reins  of  govern- 
ment. The  orators  and  journals  of  the  opposition 
were  ridiculing  and  lampooning  him  without  measure. 
Many  people  actually  wondered  how  such  a  man  could 
dare  to  undertake  a  task  which,  as  he  himself  had 
said  to  his  neighbors  in  his  parting  speech,  was  "  more 
difficult  than  that  of  Washington  himself  had  been." 
But  Lincoln  brought  to  that  task,  aside  from  other- 
uncommon  qualities,  the  first  requisite,  —  an  intuitive 
comprehension  of  its  nature.  While  he  did  not  in- 
dulge in  the  delusion  that  the  Union  could  be  main- 
tained or  restored  without  a  conflict  of  arms,  he  could 
indeed  not  foresee  all  the  problems  he  would  have  to 
solve.  He  instinctively  understood,  however,  by  what 
means  that  conflict  would  have  to  be  conducted  by 
fche  government  of  a  democracy.  He  knew  that  the 
impending  war,  whether  great  or  small,  would  not  be 
like  a  foreign  war,  exciting  a  united  national  enthu- 
siasm, but  a  civil  war,  likely  to  fan  to  uncommon 
heat  the  animosities  of  party  even  in  the  localities 
controlled  by  the  government ;  that  this  war  would 
have  to  be  carried  on,  not  by  means  of  a  ready-madf 
machinery,  ruled  by  an  undisputed,  absolute  will,  bul 
by  means  to  be  furnished  by  the  voluntary  action 
of  the  people :  —  armies  to  be  formed  by  voluntary 
enlistment ;  large  sums  of  money  to  be  raised  by  the 
people,  through  their  representatives,  voluntarily  tax- 


46  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ing  themselves ;  trusts  of  extraordinary  power  to  be 
voluntarily  granted  ;  and  war  measures,  not  seldom 
restricting  the  rights  and  liberties  to  which  the  citizen 
was  accustomed,  to  be  voluntarily  accepted  and  sub- 
mitted to  by  the  people,  or  at  least  a  large  majority  of 
them ;  —  and  that  this  would  have  to  be  kept  up,  not 
merely  during  a  short  period  of  enthusiastic  excite- 
ment, but  possibly  through  weary  years  of  alternating 
success  and  disaster,  hope  and  despondency.  He 
knew  that  in  order  to  steer  this  government  by  public 
opinion  successfully  through  all  the  confusion  created 
by  the  prejudices  and  doubts  and  differences  of  sen- 
timent distracting  the  popular  mind,  and  so  to  propi- 
tiate, inspire,  mould,  organize,  unite,  and  guide  the 
popular  will  that  it  might  give  forth  all  the  means  re- 
quired for  the  performance  of  his  great  task,  he  would 
have  to  take  into  account  all  the  influences  strongly 
affecting  the  current  of  popular  thought  and  feeling, 
and  to  direct  while  appearing  to  obey. 

This  was  the  kind  of  leadership  he  intuitively 
conceived  to  be  needed  when  a  free  people  were  to  be 
led  forward  en  masse  to  overcome  a  great  common  dan- 
ger under  circumstances  of  appalling  difficulty,  —  the 
leadership  which  does  not  dash  ahead  with  brilliant 
daring,  no  matter  who  follows,  but  which  is  intent 
upon  rallying  all  the  available  forces,  gathering  in 
the  stragglers,  closing  up  the  column,  so  that  the  front 
may  advance  well  supported.  For  this  leadership 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  admirably  fitted,  —  better  than 
any  other  American  statesman  of  his  day  ;  for  he 
understood  the  plain  people,  with  all  their  loves  and 
hates,  their  prejudices  and  their  noble  impulses,  their 
weaknesses  and  their  strength,  as  he  understood  him- 
self, and  his  sympathetic  nature  was  apt  to  draw  their 
sympathy  to  him. 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  47 

His  inaugural  address 1  foreshadowed  his  official 
course  in  characteristic  manner.  Although  yielding 
nothing  in  point  of  principle,  it  was  by  no  means  a 
flaming  anti-slavery  manifesto,  such  as  would  have 
pleased  the  more  ardent  Republicans.  It  was  rather 
the  entreaty  of  a  sorrowing  father  speaking  to  his 
wayward  children.  In  the  kindliest  language  he 
pointed  out  to  the  secessionists  how  ill-advised  their 
attempt  at  disunion  was,  and  why,  for  their  own  sakes, 
they  should  desist.  Almost  plaintively  he  told  them 
that,  while  it  was  not  their  duty  to  destroy  the  Union, 
it  was  his  sworn  duty  to  preserve  it ;  that  the  least  he 
could  do,  under  the  obligations  of  his  oath,  was  to 
possess  and  hold  the  property  of  the  United  States ; 
that  he  hoped  to  do  this  peaceably  ;  that  he  abhorred 
war  for  any  purpose,  and  that  they  would  have  none 
unless  they  themselves  were  the  aggressors.  It  was  a 
masterpiece  of  persuasiveness  ;  and  while  Lincoln  had 
accepted  many  valuable  amendments  suggested  by 
Seward,  it  was  essentially  his  own.  Probably  Lincoln 
himself  did  not  expect  his  inaugural  address  to  have 
any  effect  upon  the  secessionists,  for  he  must  have 
known  them  to  be  resolved  upon  disunion  at  any  cost. 
But  it  was  an  appeal  to  the  wavering  minds  in  the 
North,  and  upon  them  it  made  a  profound  impression. 
Every  candid  man,  however  timid  and  halting,  had  to 
admit  that  the  President  was  bound  by  his  oath  to  do 
his  duty ;  that  under  that  oath  he  could  do  no  less 
than  he  said  he  would  do;  that  if  the  secessionists 
resisted  such  an  appeal  as  the  President  had  made^ 
they  were  bent  upon  mischief,  and  that  the  govern- 
ment must  be  supported  against  them.  The  partisan 
sympathy  with  the  Southern  insurrection  which  stilJ 
1  Printed  in  Number  32,  Riverside  Literature  series 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

existed  in  the  North  did  indeed  not  disappear,  but  it 
diminished  perceptibly  under  the  influence  of  such 
reasoning.  Those  who  still  resisted  it  did  so  at  the 
risk  of  appearing  unpatriotic. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  Lincoln  at 
once  succeeded  in  pleasing  everybody,  even  among  his 
friends,  —  even  among  those  nearest  to  him.  In  select- 
ing his  cabinet,  which  he  did  substantially  before  he 
left  Springfield  for  Washington,  he  thought  it  wise  to 
call  to  his  assistance  the  strong  men  of  his  party,  espe- 
cially those  who  had  given  evidence  of  the  support 
they  commanded  as  his  competitors  in  the  Chicago 
convention.  In  them  he  found  at  the  same  time  repre- 
sentatives of  the  different  shades  of  opinion  within 
the  party,  and  of  the  different  elements  —  former 
Whigs  and  former  Democrats  —  from  which  the  party 
had  recruited  itself.  This  was  sound  policy  under  the 
circumstances.  It  might  indeed  have  been  foreseen 
that  among  the  members  of  a  cabinet  so  composed, 
troublesome  disagreements  and  rivalries  would  break 
out.  But  it  was  better  for  the  President  to  have  these 
strong  and  ambitious  men  near  him  as  his  cob'pera- 
tors  than  to  have  them  as  his  critics  in  Congress, 
where  their  differences  might  have  been  composed  in 
a  common  opposition  to  him.  As  members  of  his 
cabinet  he  could  hope  to  control  them,  and  to  keep 
them  busily  employed  in  the  service  of  a  common  pur- 
pose, if  he  had  the  strength  to  do  so.  Whether  he 
did  possess  this  strength  was  soon  tested  by  a  singu- 
larly rude  trial. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  foremost  members 
of  his  cabinet,  Seward  and  Chase,  the  most  eminent 
Republican  statesmen,  had  felt  themselves  wronged 
by  their  party  when  in  its  national  convention  it 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  49 

preferred  to  them  for  the  presidency  a  man  whom, 
not  unnaturally,  they  thought  greatly  their  inferior  in 
ability  and  experience  as  well  as  in  service.  The  sore- 
ness of  that  disappointment  was  intensified  when  they 
saw  this  Western  man  in  the  White  House,  with  so 
much  of  rustic  manner  and  speech  as  still  clung  to 
him,  meeting  his  fellow  citizens,  high  and  low,  on  a 
footing  of  equality,  with  the  simplicity  of  his  good 
nature  unburdened  by  any  conventional  dignity  of 
deportment,  and  dealing  with  the  great  business  oi 
state  in  an  easy-going,  unmethodical,  and  apparently 
somewhat  irreverent  way.  They  did  not  understand 
such  a  man.  Especially  Seward,  who,  as  Secretary  of 
State,  considered  himself  next  to  the  Chief  Executive, 
and  who  quickly  accustomed  himself  to  giving  or- 
ders and  making  arrangements  upon  his  own  motion, 
thought  it  necessary  that  he  should  rescue  the  direc- 
tion of  public  affairs  from  hands  so  unskilled,  and 
take  full  charge  of  them  himself.  At  the  end  of  the 
first  month  of  the  administration  he  submitted  a 
"  memorandum  "  to  President  Lincoln,  which  has  been 
first  brought  to  light  by  Nicolay  and  Hay,1  and  is  one 
of  their  most  valuable  contributions  to  the  history  of 
those  days.  In  that  paper  Seward  actually  told  the 
President  that,  at  the  end  of  a  month's  administration, 
the  government  was  still  without  a  policy,  either  do- 
mestic or  foreign  ;  that  the  slavery  question  should  be 
eliminated  from  the  struggle  about  the  Union  ;  that 
the  matter  of  the  maintenance  of  the  forts  and  other 
possessions  in  the  South  should  be  decided  with  thai 
view ;  that  explanations  should  be  demanded  categor* 
ically  from  the  governments  of  Spain  and  France* 

1  In  their  Life  of  Lincoln,  in  ten  volumes,  published  by  The 
Century  Company,  New  York. 


50  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN-. 

which  were  then  preparing,  one  for  the  annexation  of 
San  Domingo,  and  both  for  the  invasion  of  Mexico ; 
that  if  no  satisfactory  explanations  were  received  war 
should  be  declared  against  Spain  and  France  by  the 
United  States  ;  that  explanations  should  also  be  sought 
from  Russia  and  Great  Britain,  and  a  vigorous  conti- 
nental spirit  of  independence  against  European  inter- 
vention be  aroused  all  over  the  American  continent ; 
that  this  policy  should  be  incessantly  pursued  and  di- 
rected by  somebody  ;  that  either  the  President  should 
devote  himself  entirely  to  it,  or  devolve  the  direction 
on  some  member  of  his  cabinet,  whereupon  all  debate 
on  this  policy  must  end. 

This  could  be  understood  only  as  a  formal  demand 
that  the  President  should  acknowledge  his  own  incom- 
petency  to  perform  his  duties,  content  himself  with 
the  amusement  of  distributing  post  offices,  and  resign 
his  power  as  to  all  important  affairs  into  the  hands  of 
his  Secretary  of  State.  It  seems  to-day  incomprehen- 
sible how  a  statesman  of  Seward's  calibre  could  at 
that  period  conceive  a  plan  of  policy  in  which  the 
slavery  question  had  no  place ;  a  policy  which  rested 
upon  the  utterly  delusive  assumption  that  the  seces- 
sionists, who  had  already  formed  their  Southern  Con- 
federacy, and  were  with  stern  resolution  preparing  to 
fight  for  its  independence,  could  be  hoodwinked  back 
into  the  Union  by  some  sentimental  demonstration 
against  European  interference ;  a  policy  which,  at 
that  critical  moment,  would  have  involved  the  Union 
in  a  foreign  war,  thus  inviting  foreign  intervention 
in  favor  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  increasing 
tenfold  its  chances  in  the  struggle  for  independence. 
But  it  is  equally  incomprehensible  how  Seward  could 
to  see  that  this  demand  of  an  unconditional 


SCHURZ'8  ESSAY.  51 

surrender  was  a  mortal  insult  to  the  head  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  that  by  putting  his  proposition  on  paper 
he  delivered  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  very  man 
he  had  insulted ;  for  had  Lincoln,  as  most  Presidents 
would  have  done,  instantly  dismissed  Seward,  and 
published  the  true  reason  for  that  dismissal,  it  would 
inevitably  have  been  the  end  of  Seward's  career.  But 
Lincoln  did  what  not  many  of  the  noblest  and  great* 
est  men  in  history  would  have  been  noble  and  great 
enough  to  do.  He  considered  that  Seward,  if  rightly 
controlled,  was  still  capable  of  rendering  great  service 
to  his  country  in  the  place  in  which  he  was.  He 
ignored  the  insult,  but  firmly  established  his  superior- 
ity. In  his  reply,  which  he  forthwith  dispatched,  he 
told  Seward  that  the  administration  had  a  domestic 
policy  as  laid  down  in  the  inaugural  address  with 
Seward's  approval ;  that  it  had  a  foreign  policy  as 
traced  in  Seward's  dispatches  with  the  President's 
approval ;  that  if  any  policy  was  to  be  maintained  or 
changed,  he,  the  President,  was  to  direct  that  on  his 
responsibility ;  and  that  in  performing  that  duty  the 
President  had  a  right  to  the  advice  of  his  secretaries. 
Seward's  fantastic  schemes  of  foreign  war  and  conti- 
nental policies  Lincoln  brushed  aside  by  passing  them 
over  in  silence.  Nothing  more  was  said.  Seward 
must  have  felt  that  he  was  at  the  mercy  of  a  superior 
man ;  that  his  offensive  proposition  had  been  gener- 
ously pardoned  as  a  temporary  aberration  of  a  great 
mind,  and  that  he  could  atone  for  it  only  by  devoted 
personal  loyalty.  This  he  did.  He  was  thoroughly 
subdued,  and  thenceforth  submitted  to  Lincoln  his 
dispatches  for  revision  and  amendment  without  a 
murmur.  The  war  with  European  nations  was  no 
longer  thought  of ;  the  slavery  question  found  in  due 


52  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

time  its  proper  place  in  the  struggle  for  the  Union ; 
and  when,  at  a  later  period,  the  dismissal  of  Seward 
was  demanded  by  dissatisfied  senators  who  attributed 
fco  him  the  shortcomings  of  the  administration,  Lin- 
coln stood  stoutly  by  his  faithful  Secretary  of  State. 

Chase,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  a  man  of 
superb  presence,  of  eminent  ability  and  ardent  pa- 
triotism, of  great  natural  dignity  and  a  certain  out- 
ward coldness  of  manner,  which  made  him  appear 
more  difficult  of  approach  than  he  really  was,  did  not 
permit  his  disappointment  to  burst  out  in  such  ex- 
travagant demonstrations.  But  Lincoln's  ways  were 
so  essentially  different  from  his  that  they  never  be- 
came quite  intelligible,  and  certainly  not  congenial  to 
him.  It  might,  perhaps,  have  been  better  had  there 
been,  at  the  beginning  of  the  administration,  some 
decided  clash  between  Lincoln  and  Chase,  as  there 
was  between  Lincoln  and  Seward,  to  bring  on  a  full 
mutual  explanation,  and  to  make  Chase  appreciate 
the  real  seriousness  of  Lincoln's  nature.  But  as  it 
was,  their  relations  always  remained  somewhat  formal, 
and  Chase  never  felt  quite  at  ease  under  a  chief 
whom  he  could  not  understand,  and  whose  character 
and  powers  he  never  learned  to  esteem  at  their  true 
value.  At  the  same  time,  he  devoted  himself  zealously 
to  the  duties  of  his  department,  and  did  the  country 
arduous  service  under  circumstances  of  extreme  diffi- 
culty. Nobody  recognized  this  more  heartily  than 
Lincoln  himself,  and  they  managed  to  work  together 
until  near  the  end  of  Lincoln's  first  presidential  term, 
when  Chase,  after  some  disagreements  concerning  ap- 
pointments to  office,  resigned  from  the  treasury ;  and 
after  Taney's  death,  the  President  made  him  Chief 
Justice* 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  53 

The  rest  of  the  cabinet  consisted  of  men  of  less 
eminence,  who  subordinated  themselves  more  easily. 
In  January,  1862,  Lincoln  found  it  necessary  to  bow 
Cameron  out  of  the  war  office,  and  to  put  in  his  place 
Edwin  M.  Stanton,  a  man  of  intensely  practical  mind, 
vehement  impulses,  fierce  positiveness,  ruthless  energy, 
immense  working  power,  lofty  patriotism,  and  severest 
devotion  to  duty.  He  accepted  the  war  office,  not  as 
a  partisan,  for  he  had  never  been  a  Republican,  but 
only  to  do  all  he  could  in  "  helping  to  save  the  coun- 
try." The  manner  in  which  Lincoln  succeeded  in 
taming  this  lion  to  his  will,  by  frankly  recognizing 
his  great  qualities,  by  giving  him  the  most  generous 
confidence,  by  aiding  him  in  his  work  to  the  full  of 
his  power,  by  kindly  concession  or  affectionate  per- 
suasiveness in  cases  of  differing  opinions,  or,  when  it 
was  necessary,  by  firm  assertions  of  superior  authority, 
bears  the  highest  testimony  to  his  skill  in  the  manage- 
ment of  men.  Stanton,  who  had  entered  the  service 
with  rather  a  mean  opinion  of  Lincoln's  character 
and  capacity,  became  one  of  his  warmest,  most  de- 
voted, and  most  admiring  friends,  and  with  none  of 
his  secretaries  was  Lincoln's  intercourse  more  intimate. 
To  take  advice  with  candid  readiness,  and  to  weigh  it 
without  any  pride  of  his  own  opinion,  was  one  of  Lin- 
coln's preeminent  virtues ;  but  he  had  not  long  pre- 
sided over  his  cabinet  council  when  his  was  felt  by 
all  its  members  to  be  the  ruling  mind. 

The  cautious  policy  foreshadowed  in  his  inaugural 
address,  and  pursued  during  the  first  period  of  the 
civil  war,  was  far  from  satisfying  all  his  party  friends. 
The  ardent  spirits  among  the  Union  men  thought 
that  the  whole  North  should  at  once  be  called  to  arms, 
to  crush  the  rebellion  by  one  powerful  blow.  The 


£4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

ardent  spirits  among  the  anti-slavery  men  insisted 
that,  slavery  having  brought  forth  the  rebellion,  this 
powerful  blow  should  at  once  be  aimed  at  slavery. 
Both  complained  that  the  administration  was  spiritless, 
undecided,  and  lamentably  slow  in  its  proceedings. 
Lincoln  reasoned  otherwise.  The  ways  of  thinking 
and  feeling  of  the  masses,  of  the  plain  people,  were 
constantly  present  to  his  mind.  The  masses,  the  plain 
people,  had  to  furnish  the  men  for  the  fighting,  if 
fighting  was  to  be  done.  He  believed  that  the  plain 
people  would  be  ready  to  fight  when  it  clearly  ap- 
peared necessary,  and  that  they  would  feel  that  neces- 
sity when  they  felt  themselves  attacked.  He  there- 
fore waited  until  the  enemies  of  the  Union  struck  the 
first  blow.  As  soon  as,  on  the  12th  of  April,  1861, 
the  first  gun  was  fired  in  Charleston  harbor  on  the 
Union  flag  upon  Fort  Sumter,  the  call  was  sounded, 
and  the  Northern  people  rushed  to  arms. 

Lincoln  knew  that  the  plain  people  were  now  in- 
deed ready  to  fight  in  defence  of  the  Union,  but  not 
yet  ready  to  fight  for  the  destruction  of  slavery.  He 
declared  openly  that  he  had  a  right  to  summon  the 
people  to  fight  for  the  Union,  but  not  to  summon 
them  to  fight  for  the  abolition  of  slavery  as  a  primary 
object ;  and  this  declaration  gave  him  numberless  sol- 
diers for  the  Union  who  at  that  period  would  have 
hesitated  to  do  battle  against  the  institution  of  slavery 
For  a  time  he  succeeded  in  rendering  harmless  the 
cry  of  the  partisan  opposition  that  the  Republican 
administration  was  perverting  the  war  for  the  Union 
into  an  "abolition  war."  But  when  he  went  so  far 
as  to  countermand  the  acts  of  some  generals  in  the 
field,  looking  to  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  in  the 
districts  covered  by  their  commands,  loud  complaints 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  55 

arose  from  earnest  anti-slavery  men,  who  accused  the 
President  of  turning  his  back  upon  the  anti-slavery 
cause.  Many  of  these  anti-slavery  men  will  now, 
after  a  calm  retrospect,  be  willing  to  admit  that  it 
would  have  been  a  hazardous  policy  to  endanger,  by 
precipitating  a  demonstrative  fight  against  slavery, 
the  success  of  the  struggle  for  the  Union. 

Lincoln's  views  and  feelings  concerning  slavery 
had  not  changed.  Those  who  conversed  with  him  in- 
timately upon  the  subject  at  that  period  know  that  he 
did  not  expect  slavery  long  to  survive  the  triumph  of 
the  Union,  even  if  it  were  not  immediately  destroyed 
by  the  war.  In  this  he  was  right.  Had  the  Union 
armies  achieved  a  decisive  victory  in  an  early  period 
of  the  conflict,  and  had  the  seceded  States  been  re- 
ceived back  with  slavery,  the  "  slave  power '  would 
then  have  been  a  defeated  power,  —  defeated  in  an 
attempt  to  carry  out  its  most  effective  threat.  It 
would  have  lost  its  prestige.  Its  menaces  would  have 
been  hollow  sound,  and  ceased  to  make  any  one  afraid. 
It  could  no  longer  have  hoped  to  expand,  to  maintain 
an  equilibrium  in  any  branch  of  Congress,  and  to  con- 
trol the  government.  The  victorious  free  States  would 
have  largely  overbalanced  it.  It  would  no  longei 
have  been  able  to  withstand  the  onset  of  a  hostile  age£ 
It  could  no  longer  have  ruled,  —  and  slavery  had  to 
rule  in  order  to  live.  It  would  have  lingered  for  a 
while,  but  it  would  surely  have  been  "  in  the  course 
of  ultimate  extinction."  A  prolonged  war  precipi- 
tated the  destruction  of  slavery;  a  short  war  might 
only  have  prolonged  its  death  struggle.  Lincoln  saw 
this  clearly ;  but  he  saw  also  that,  in  a  protracted 
leath  struggle,  it  might  still  have  kept  disloyal  senti- 
alive,  bred  distracting  commotions,  and  caused 


56  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

great  mischief  to  the  country.     He  therefore  hoped 
that  slavery  would  not  survive  the  war. 

But  the  question  how  he  could  rightfully  employ 
his  power  to  bring  on  its  speedy  destruction  was  to 
him  not  a  question  of  mere  sentiment.  He  himseli 
set  forth  his  reasoning  upon  it,  at  a  later  period,  in 
one  of  his  inimitable  letters.  "  I  am  naturally  anti- 
slavery,"  said  he.  "  If  slavery  is  not  wrong,  nothing 
is  wrong.  I  cannot  remember  the  time  when  I  did 
not  so  think  and  feel.  And  yet  I  have  never  under- 
stood that  the  presidency  conferred  upon  me  an  unre- 
stricted right  to  act  upon  that  judgment  and  feeling. 
It  was  in  the  oath  I  took  that  I  would,  to  the  best  of 
my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  I  could  not  take  the  office 
without  taking  the  oath.  Nor  was  it  my  view  that  I 
might  take  an  oath  to  get  power,  and  break  the  oath 
in  using  that  power.  I  understood,  too,  that,  in  ordi- 
nary civil  administration,  this  oath  even  forbade  me 
practically  to  indulge  my  private  abstract  judgment 
on  the  moral  question  of  slavery.  I  did  understand, 
however,  also,  that  my  oath  imposed  upon  me  the 
duty  of  preserving,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  by  every 
indispensable  means,  that  government,  that  nation,  of 
which  the  Constitution  was  the  organic  law.  I  could 
not  feel  that,  to  the  best  of  my  ability,  I  had  even 
tried  to  preserve  the  Constitution  if,  to  save  slavery, 
or  any  minor  matter,  I  should  permit  the  wreck  of 
government,  country,  and  Constitution  all  together." 
In  other  words,  if  the  salvation  of  the  government,  the 
Constitution,  and  the  Union  demanded  the  destruction 
of  slavery,  he  felt  it  to  be  not  only  his  right,  but  his 
sworn  duty  to  destroy  it.  Its  destruction  became  a 
necessity  of  the  war  for  the  Union, 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  57 

As  the  war  dragged  on  and  disaster  followed  dis» 
aster,  the  sense  of  that  necessity  steadily  grew  upon 
him.  Early  in  1862,  as  some  of  his  friends  well  re- 
member, he  saw,  what  Seward  seemed  not  to  see,  that 
to  give  the  war  for  the  Union  an  anti-slavery  charac= 
ter  was  the  surest  means  to  prevent  the  recognition  of 
the  Southern  Confederacy  as  an  independent  nation 
by  European  powers ;  that,  slavery  being  abhorred 
by  the  moral  sense  of  civilized  mankind,  no  Euro- 
pean government  would  dare  to  offer  so  gross  an 
insult  to  the  public  opinion  of  its  people  as  openly  to 
favor  the  creation  of  a  state  founded  upon  slavery  to 
the  prejudice  of  an  existing  nation  fighting  against 
slavery.  He  saw  also  that  slavery  untouched  was  to 
the  rebellion  an  element  of  power,  and  that  in  order 
to  overcome  that  power  it  was  necessary  to  turn  it 
into  an  element  of  weakness.  Still,  he  felt  no  assur- 
ance that  the  plain  people  were  prepared  for  so  radical 
a  measure  as  the  emancipation  of  the  slaves  by  act 
cf  the  government,  and  he  anxiously  considered  that, 
if  they  were  not,  this  great  step  might,  by  exciting  dis- 
sension at  the  North,  injure  the  cause  of  the  Union  in 
one  quarter  more  than  it  would  help  it  in  another. 
He  heartily  welcomed  an  effort  made  in  New  York  to 
mould  and  stimulate  public  sentiment  on  the  slavery 
question  by  public  meetings  boldly  pronouncing  for 
emancipation.  At  the  same  time  he  himself  cau- 
tiously advanced  with  a  recommendation,  expressed  in 
a  special  message  to  Congress,  that  the  United  States 
should  cooperate  with  any  State  which  might  adopt 
the  gradual  abolishment  of  slavery,  giving  such  State 
pecuniary  aid  to  compensate  the  former  owners  of 
emancipated  slaves.  The  discussion  was  started,  and 
spread  rapidly.  Congress  adopted  the  resolution  re 


68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN-. 

commended,  and  soon  went  a  step  farther  in  passing 
a  bill  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of  Columbia. 
The  plain  people  began  to  look  at  emancipation  on  a 
larger  scale,  as  a  thing  to  be  considered  seriously  by 
patriotic  citizens  ;  and  soon  Lincoln  thought  that  the 
time  was  ripe,  and  that  the  edict  of  freedom  could  be 
ventured  upon  without  danger  of  serious  confusion  in 
the  Union  ranks. 

The  failure  of  McClellan's  movement  upon  .Rich 
mond  increased  immensely  the  prestige  of  the  enemy, 
The  need  of  some  great  act  to  stimulate  the  vitality 
of  the  Union  cause  seemed  to  grow  daily  more  press« 
ing.  On  July  21,  1862,  Lincoln  surprised  his  cabinet 
with  the  draught  of  a  proclamation  declaring  free  the 
slaves  in  all  the  States  that  should  be  still  in  rebel- 
lion against  the  United  States  on  the  1st  of  January^ 
1863.  As  to  the  matter  itself  he  announced  that  he 
had  fully  made  up  his  mind  ;  he  invited  advice  only 
concerning  the  form  and  the  time  of  publication. 
Seward  suggested  that  the  proclamation,  if  then 
brought  out,  amidst  disaster  and  distress,  would  sound 
like  the  last  shriek  of  a  perishing  cause.  Lincoln 
accepted  the  suggestion,  and  the  proclamation  was 
postponed.  Another  defeat  followed,  the  second  at 
Bull  Run.  But  when,  after  that  battle,  the  Confed- 
erate army,  under  Lee,  crossed  the  Potomac  and  in<= 
vaded  Maryland,  Lincoln  vowed  in  his  heart  that,  if 
the  Union  army  were  now  blessed  with  success,  the 
decree  of  freedom  should  surely  be  issued.  The  vic- 
tory of  Antietam  was  won  on  September  17,  and  the 
preliminary  Emancipation  Proclamation  came  forth 
on  the  22d.  It  was  Lincoln's  own  resolution  and  act ; 
but  practically  it  bound  the  nation,  and  permitted  no 
step  backward.  In  spite  of  its  limitations,  it  was  the 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  69 

actual  abolition  of  slavery.  Thus  he  wrote  his  name 
upon  the  books  of  history  with  the  title  dearest  to  his 
heart,  —  the  liberator  of  the  slave. 

It  is  true,  the  great  proclamation,  which  stamped 
the  war  as  one  for  "  union  and  freedom,"  did  not  at 
once  mark  the  turning  of  the  tide  on  the  field  of  mili- 
tary operations.  There  were  more  disasters,  —  Fred- 
ericksburg  and  Chancellorsville.  But  with  Gettys- 
burg and  Vicksburg  the  whole  aspect  of  the  war 
changed.  Step  by  step,  now  more  slowly,  then  more 
rapidly,  but  with  increasing  steadiness,  the  flag  of 
the  Union  advanced  from  field  to  field  toward  the 
final  consummation.  The  decree  of  emancipation  was 
naturally  followed  by  the  enlistment  of  emancipated 
negroes  in  the  Union  armies.  This  measure  had  a 
farther  reaching  effect  than  merely  giving  the  Union 
armies  an  increased  supply  of  men.  The  laboring 
force  of  the  rebellion  was  hopelessly  disorganized. 
The  war  became  like  a  problem  of  arithmetic.  As 
the  Union  armies  pushed  forward,  the  area  from 
which  the  Southern  Confederacy  could  draw  recruits 
and  supplies  constantly  grew  smaller,  while  the  area 
from  which  the  Union  recruited  its  strength  con- 
stantly grew  larger  :  and  everywhere,  even  within  the 
Southern  lines,  the  Union  had  its  allies.  The  fate  of 
the  rebellion  was  then  virtually  decided ;  but  it  still 
required  much  bloody  work  to  convince  the  brave 
warriors  who  fought  for  it  that  they  were  really 
beaten. 

Neither  did  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  l  forth- 
with command  universal  assent  among  the  people  who 
were  loyal  to  the  Union.  There  were  even  signs  of  a 

1  The  text  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  will  be  found 
in  Number  32,  Riverside  Literature  series. 


60  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

reaction  against  the  administration  in  the  fall  elec- 
tions of  1862,  seemingly  justifying  the  opinion,  enter 
tained  by  many,  that  the  President  had  really  antici- 
pated the  development  of  popular  feeling.  The  cry 
that  the  war  for  the  Union  had  been  turned  into  an 
"  abolition  war  "  was  raised  again  by  the  opposition 
and  more  loudly  than  ever.  But  the  good  sense  and 
patriotic  instincts  of  the  plain  people  gradually  mar« 
shalled  themselves  on  Lincoln's  side,  and  he  lost  no 
opportunity  to  help  on  this  process  by  personal  argu- 
ment and  admonition.  There  never  has  been  a  Presi- 
dent in  such  constant  and  active  contact  with  the 
public  opinion  of  the  country,  as  there  never  has  been 
a  President  who,  while  at  the  head  of  the  government,, 
remained  so  near  to  the  people.  Beyond  the  circle  of 
those  who  had  long  known  him,  the  feeling  steadily 
grew  that  the  man  in  the  White  House  was  "  honest 
Abe  Lincoln  "  still,  and  that  every  citizen  might  ap- 
proach him  with  complaint,  expostulation,  or  advice, 
without  danger  of  meeting  a  rebuff  from  power-proud 
authority  or  humiliating  condescension  ;  and  this 
privilege  was  used  by  so  many  and  with  such  unspar- 
ing freedom  that  only  superhuman  patience  could 
have  endured  it  all.  There  are  men  now  living  who 
would  to-day  read  with  amazement,  if  not  regret,  what 
they  then  ventured  to  say  or  write  to  him.  But  Lin- 
coln repelled  no  one  whom  he  believed  to  speak  to 
him  in  good  faith  and  with  patriotic  purpose.  No 
good  advice  would  go  unheeded.  No  candid  criticism 
would  offend  him.  No  honest  opposition,  while  it 
might  pain  him,  would  produce  a  lasting  alienation  of 
feeling  between  him  and  the  opponent.  It  may  truly 
be  said  that  few  men  in  power  have  ever  been  ex- 
posed to  more  daring  attempts  to  direct  their  course, 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  61 

to  severer  censure  of  their  acts,  and  to  more  cruel 
misrepresentation  of  their  motives.  And  all  this  he 
met  with  that  good-natured  humor  peculiarly  his  own, 
and  with  untiring  effort  to  see  the  right  and  to  im- 
press it  upon  those  who  differed  from  him.  The  con- 
versations he  had  and  the  correspondence  he  carried 
on  upon  matters  of  public  interest,  not  only  with  men 
in  official  position,  but  with  private  citizens,  were  al- 
most unceasing,  and  in  a  large  number  of  public  let- 
ters, written  ostensibly  to  meetings,  or  committees,  or 
persons  of  importance,  he  addressed  himself  directly 
to  the  popular  mind.  Most  of  these  letters  stand 
among  the  finest  monuments  of  our  political  litera- 
ture. Thus  he  presented  the  singular  spectacle  of  a 
President  who,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  civil  war,  with 
unprecedented  duties  weighing  upon  him,  was  con- 
stantly in  person  debating  the  great  features  of  his 
policy  with  the  people. 

While  in  this  manner  he  exercised  an  ever-increas- 
ing influence  upon  the  popular  understanding,  his 
sympathetic  nature  endeared  him  more  and  more  to 
the  popular  heart.  In  vain  did  journals  and  speakers 
of  the  opposition  represent  him  as  a  light-minded 
trifler,  who  amused  himself  with  frivolous  story-tell- 
ing and  coarse  jokes,  while  the  blood  of  the  people 
was  flowing  in  streams.  The  people  knew  that  the 
man  at  the  head  of  affairs,  on  whose  haggard  face  the 
twinkle  of  humor  so  frequently  changed  into  an  ex- 
pression of  profoundest  sadness,  was  more  than  anj 
other  deeply  distressed  by  the  suffering  he  witnessed ; 
that  he  felt  the  pain  of  every  wound  that  was  inflicted 
on  the  battlefield,  and  the  anguish  of  every  woman  or 
child  who  had  lost  husband  or  father  ;  that  whenever 
he  could  he  was  eager  to  alleviate  sorrow,  and  that 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN-. 

his  mercy  was  never  implored  in  vain.  They  looked 
to  him  as  one  who  was  with  them  and  of  them  in  all 
their  hopes  and  fears,  their  joys  and  sorrows,  —  who 
laughed  with  them  and  wept  with  them ;  and  as  his 
heart  was  theirs,  so  their  hearts  turned  to  him.  His 
popularity  was  far  different  from  that  of  Washington, 
who  was  revered  with  awe,  or  that  of  Jackson,  the 
unconquerable  hero,  for  whom  party  enthusiasm  never 
grew  weary  of  shouting.  To  Abraham  Lincoln  the 
people  became  bound  by  a  genuine  sentimental  attach- 
ment. It  was  not  a  matter  of  respect,  or  confidence, 
or  party  pride,  for  this  feeling  spread  far  beyond 
the  boundary  lines  of  his  party ;  it  was  an  affair  of 
the  heart,  independent  of  mere  reasoning.  When  the 
soldiers  in  the  field  or  their  folks  at  home  spoke  of 
"  Father  Abraham,"  there  was  no  cant  in  it.  They 
felt  that  their  President  was  really  caring  for  them  as 
a  father  would,  and  that  they  could  go  to  him,  every 
one  of  them,  as  they  would  go  to  a  father,  and  talk  to 
him  of  what  troubled  them,  sure  to  find  a  willing  ear 
and  tender  sympathy.  Thus,  their  President,  and  his 
cause,  and  his  endeavors,  and  his  success  gradually 
became  to  them  almost  matters  of  family  concern. 
And  this  popularity  carried  him  triumphantly  through 
the  presidential  election  of  1864,  in  spite  of  an  oppo- 
sition within  his  own  party  which  at  first  seemed  very 
formidable. 

Many  of  the  radical  anti-slavery  men  were  never 
quite  satisfied  with  Lincoln's  ways  of  meeting  the 
problems  of  the  time.  They  were  very  earnest  and 
mostly  very  able  men,  who  had  positive  ideas  as  to 
"  how  this  rebellion  should  be  put  down."  They 
would  not  recognize  the  necessity  of  measuring  the 
steps  of  the  government  according  to  the  progress  of 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  63 

opinion  among  the  plain  people.  They  criticised 
Lincoln's  cautious  management  as  irresolute,  halting, 
lacking  in  definite  purpose  and  in  energy ;  he  should 
not  have  delayed  emancipation  so  long ;  he  should  not 
have  confided  important  commands  to  men  of  doubt- 
ful views  as  to  slavery ;  he  should  have  authorized 
military  commanders  to  set  the  slaves  free  as  they 
went  on ;  he  dealt  too  lenientlv  with  unsuccessful 

V 

generals ;  he  should  have  put  down  all  factious  oppo- 
sition with  a  strong  hand  instead  of  trying  to  pacify 
it;  he  should  have  given  the  people  accomplished 
facts  instead  of  arguing  with  them,  and  so  on.  It  is 
true,  these  criticisms  were  not  always  entirely  un- 
founded. Lincoln's  policy  had,  with  the  virtues  of 
democratic  government,  some  of  its  weaknesses,  which 
in  the  presence  of  pressing  exigencies  were  apt  to 
deprive  governmental  action  of  the  necessary  vigor ; 
and  his  kindness  of  heart,  his  disposition  always  to 
respect  the  feelings  of  others,  frequently  made  him 
recoil  from  anything  like  severity,  even  when  severity 
was  urgently  called  for.  But  many  of  his  radical 
critics  have  since  then  revised  their  judgment  suffi- 
ciently to  admit  that  Lincoln's  policy  was,  on  the 
whole,  the  wisest  and  safest ;  that  a  policy  of  heroic 
methods,  while  it  has  sometimes  accomplished  great 
results,  could  in  a  democracy  like  ours  be  maintained 
only  by  constant  success ;  that  it  would  have  quickly 
broken  down  under  the  weight  of  disaster  ;  that  it 
jnight  have  been  successful  from  the  start,  had  the 
Union,  at  the  beginning  of  the  conflict,  had  its  Grants 
and  Shermans  and  Sheridans,  its  Farraguts  and  Por- 
ters, fully  matured  at  the  head  of  its  forces  ;  but  that, 
as  the  great  commanders  had  to  be  evolved  slowly 
from  the  developments  of  the  war,  constant  success 


64  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

could  not  be  counted  upon,  and  it  was  best  to  follow 
a  policy  which  was  in  friendly  contact  with  the  popu- 
lar force,  and  therefore  more  fit  to  stand  the  trial 
of  misfortune  on  the  battlefield.  But  at  that  period 
they  thought  differently,  and  their  dissatisfaction  with 
Lincoln's  doings  was  greatly  increased  by  the  steps  he 
took  toward  the  reconstruction  of  rebel  States  then 
partially  in  possession  of  the  Union  forces. 

In  December,  1863,  Lincoln  issued  an  amnesty 
proclamation,  offering  pardon  to  all  implicated  in  the 
rebellion,  with  certain  specified  exceptions,  on  condi- 
tion of  their  taking  and  maintaining  an  oath  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution  and  obey  the  laws  of  the  United 
States  and  the  proclamations  of  the  President  with 
regard  to  slaves ;  and  also  promising  that  when,  in 
any  of  the  rebel  States,  a  number  of  citizens  equal  to 
one  tenth  of  the  voters  in  1860  should  reestablish  a 
state  government  in  conformity  with  the  oath  above 
mentioned,  such  should  be  recognized  by  the  Execu- 
tive as  the  true  government  of  the  State.  The  pro- 
clamation seemed  at  first  to  be  received  with  general 
favor.  But  soon  another  scheme  of  reconstruction, 
much  more  stringent  in  its  provisions,  was  put  for- 
ward in  the  House  of  Representatives  by  Henry 
Winter  Davis.  Benjamin  Wade  championed  it  in 
the  Senate.  It  passed  in  the  closing  moments  of  the 
session  in  July,  1864,  and  Lincoln,  instead  of  making 
it  a  law  by  his  signature,  embodied  the  text  of  it  in 
a  proclamation  as  a  plan  of  reconstruction  worthy  of 
being  earnestly  considered.  The  differences  of  opin- 
ion concerning  this  subject  had  only  intensified  the 
feeling  against  Lincoln  which  had  long  been  nursed 
among  the  radicals,  and  some  of  them  openly  declared 
purpose  of  resisting  his  reelection  to  the  presi- 


SCHUHZ'S  ESSAY.  65 

dency.     Similar  sentiments  were  manifested   by  the 
advanced  anti-slavery  men  of  Missouri,  who,  in  their 
hot   faction-fight    with   the  "  conservatives '    of   that 
State,  had  not  received  from  Lincoln  the  active  sup- 
port they  demanded.      Still  another  class  of  Union 
men,  mainly  in  the  East,  gravely  shook  their  heads 
when  considering  the  question  whether  Lincoln  should 
be  reflected.     They  were  those  who  cherished  in  their 
minds  an  ideal  of  statesmanship  and  of  personal  bear- 
ing in  high  office  with  which,  in  their  opinion,  Lin- 
coln's individuality  was  much  out  of  accord.     They 
were  shocked  when  they  heard  him  cap  an  argument 
upon  grave  affairs  of  state  with  a  story  about  "  a  man 
out  in   Sangamon    County,"  —  a  story,    to   be  sure, 
strikingly  clinching  his    point,  but  sadly  lacking  in 
dignity.     They  could   not  understand    the  man  who 
was  capable,  in  opening  a  cabinet  meeting,  of  reading 
to  his  secretaries  a  funny  chapter  from  a  recent  book 
of  Artemus  Ward,  with  which  in  an  unoccupied  mo- 
ment he  had  relieved  his  care-burdened  mind,  and  who 
then  solemnly  informed  the  executive  council  that  he 
had  vowed  in  his  heart  to  issue  a  proclamation  eman- 
cipating the  slaves  as  soon  as  God  blessed  the  Union 
arms  with  another  victory.    They  were  alarmed  at  the 
weakness  of  a  President  who  would  indeed  resist  the 
urgent  remonstrances  of  statesmen  against  his  policy, 
but  could  not  resist  the  prayer  of  an  old  woman  for 
the  pardon  of   a  soldier  who  was   sentenced   to    be 
shot  for  desertion.      Such  men,  mostly  sincere  and 
ardent  patriots,  not  only  wished,  but  earnestly  set  to 
work,  to  prevent  Lincoln's  renomination.     Not  a  few 
of   them  actually  believed,  in  1863,  that,  if  the  na- 
tional convention  of  the  Union  party  were  held  then, 
Lincoln  would  not  be  supported  by  the  delegation  oi 


66  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

a  single  State.  But  when  the  convention  met  at 
Baltimore,  in  June,  1864,  the  voice  of  the  people  was 
heard.  On  the  first  ballot  Lincoln  received  the  votes 
of  the  delegations  from  all  the  States  except  Missouri ; 
and  even  the  Missourians  turned  over  their  votes  to 
him  before  the  result  of  the  ballot  was  declared. 

But  even  after  his  renomination,  the  opposition  to 
Lincoln  within  the  ranks  of  the  Union  party  did  not 
subside.  A  convention,  called  by  the  dissatisfied  radi- 
cals in  Missouri,  and  favored  by  men  of  a  similar  way 
of  thinking  in  other  States,  had  been  held  already 
in  May,  and  had  nominated  as  its  candidate  for  the 
presidency  General  Fremont.  He,  indeed,  did  not 
attract  a  strong  following,  but  opposition  movements 
from  different  quarters  appeared  more  formidable. 
Henry  Winter  Davis  and  Benjamin  Wade  assailed 
Lincoln  in  a  flaming  manifesto.  Other  Union  men, 
of  undoubted  patriotism  and  high  standing,  persuaded 
themselves,  and  sought  to  persuade  the  people,  that 
Lincoln's  renomination  was  ill  advised  and  dangerous 
to  the  Union  cause.  As  the  Democrats  had  put  off 
their  convention  until  the  29th  of  August,  the  Union 
party  had,  during  the  larger  part  of  the  summer, 
no  opposing  candidate  and  platform  to  attack,  and 
the  political  campaign  languished.  Neither  were  the 
tidings  from  the  theatre  of  war  of  a  cheering  charac- 
ter. The  terrible  losses  suffered  by  Grant's  army  in 
the  battles  of  the  Wilderness  spread  general  gloom. 
Sherman  seemed  for  a  while  to  be  in  a  precarious 
position  before  Atlanta.  The  opposition  to  Lincoln 
within  the  Union  party  grew  louder  in  its  complaints 
and  discouraging  predictions.  Earnest  demands  were 
heard  that  his  candidacy  should  be  withdrawn.  Lin- 
coln himself,  not  knowing  how  strongly  the  masses 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  67 

were  attached  to  him,  was  haunted  by  dark  forebod« 
ings  of  defeat.  Then  the  scene  suddenly  changed  as 
if  by  magic.  The  Democrats,  in  their  national  con- 
vention, declared  the  war  a  failure,  demanded,  sub- 
stantially, peace  at  any  price,  and  nominated  on  such 
a  platform  General  McClellan  as  their  candidate,, 
Their  convention  had  hardly  adjourned  when  the 
capture  of  Atlanta  gave  a  new  aspect  to  the  military 
situation.  It  was  like  a  sun-ray  bursting  through  a 
dark  cloud.  The  rank  and  file  of  the  Union  party 
rose  with  rapidly  growing  enthusiasm.  The  song 
"  We  are  coming,  Father  Abraham,  three  hundred 
thousand  strong,"  resounded  all  over  the  land.  Long 
before  the  decisive  day  arrived,  the  result  was  beyond 
doubt,  and  Lincoln  was  reflected  President  by  over* 
whelming  majorities.  The  election  over,  even  his 
severest  critics  found  themselves  forced  to  admit  that 
Lincoln  was  the  only  possible  candidate  for  the  Union 
party  in  1864,  and  that  neither  political  combinations 
nor  campaign  speeches,  nor  even  victories  in  the  field, 
were  needed  to  insure  his  success.  The  plain  people 
had  all  the  while  been  satisfied  with  Abraham  Lincoln : 
they  confided  in  him ;  they  loved  him  ;  they  felt  them- 
selves near  to  him ;  they  saw  personified  in  him  the 
cause  of  Union  and  freedom ;  and  they  went  to  the 
ballot-box  for  him  in  their  strength. 

The  hour  of  triumph  called  out  the  characteristic 
impulses  of  his  nature.  The  opposition  within  the 
Union  party  had  stung  him  to  the  quick.  Now  he 
had  his  opponents  before  him,  baffled  and  humiliated. 
Not  a  moment  did  he  lose  to  stretch  out  the  hand  of 
friendship  to  all.  "  Now  that  the  election  is  over," 
he  said,  in  response  to  a  serenade,  "  may  not  all,  hav« 
ing  a  common  interest,  reunite  in  a  common  effort  to 


68  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

save  our  common  country  ?  For  my  own  part,  I  have 
striven,  and  will  strive,  to  place  no  obstacle  in  the 
way.  So  long  as  I  have  been  here  I  have  not  willingly 
planted  a  thorn  in  any  man's  bosom.  While  I  am 
deeply  sensible  to  the  high  compliment  of  a  reelec- 
tion, it  adds  nothing  to  my  satisfaction  that  any  other 
man  may  be  pained  or  disappointed  by  the  result. 
May  I  ask  those  who  were  with  me  to  join  with  me  in 
the  same  spirit  toward  those  who  were  against  me  ? ' 
This  was  Abraham  Lincoln's  character  as  tested  in 
i'he  furnace  of  prosperity. 

The  war  was  virtually  decided,  but  not  yet  ended. 
Sherman  was  irresistibly  carrying  the  Union  flag 
through  the  South.  Grant  had  his  iron  hand  upon  the 
ramparts  of  Richmond.  The  days  of  the  Confederacy 
were  evidently  numbered.  Only  the  last  blow  re- 
mained to  be  struck.  Then  Lincoln's  second  inaugu- 
ration came,  and  with  it  his  second  inaugural  address. 
Lincoln's  famous  "  Gettysburg  speech " l  has  been 
much  and  justly  admired.  But  far  greater,  as  well  as 
far  more  characteristic,  was  that  inaugural  in  which  he 
poured  out  the  whole  devotion  and  tenderness  of  his 
great  soul.  It  had  all  the  solemnity  of  a  father's  last 
admonition  and  blessing  to  his  children  before  he  lay 
down  to  die.  These  were  its  closing  words :  "  Fondly 
do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that  this  mighty 
scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet  if  God 
wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  up  by 
the  bondman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unre- 
quited toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of 
blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another 
drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was  said  three  thousand 

1  Both  the  second  inaugural  address  and  the  Gettysburg 
Speech  are  printed  in  No.  32,  Riverside  Literature  series. 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  69 

years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said,  '  The  judgments  of 
the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  altogether.'  With 
malice  toward  none,  with  charity  for  all,  with  firmness 
in  the  right  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
strive  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in  ;  to  bind  up  the 
nation's  wounds  ;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne 
the  battle,  and  for  his  widow  and  his  orphan ;  to  do 
all  which  may  achieve  and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting 
peace  among  ourselves  and  with  all  nations." 

This  was  like  a  sacred  poem.  No  American  Pre- 
sident had  ever  spoken  words  like  these  to  the  Ameri- 
can people.  America  never  had  a  President  who 
found  such  words  in  the  depth  of  his  heart. 

Now  followed  the  closing  scenes  of  the  war.  The 
Southern  armies  fought  bravely  to  the  last,  but  all  in 
vain.  Richmond  fell.  Lincoln  himself  entered  the 
city  on  foot,  accompanied  only  by  a  few  officers  and  a 
sauad  of  sailors  who  had  rowed  him  ashore  from  the 

M. 

flotilla  in  the  James  River,  a  negro  picked  up  on  the 
way  serving  as  a  guide.  Never  had  the  world  seen 
a  more  modest  conqueror  and  a  more  characteristic 
triumphal  procession,  —  no  army  with  banners  and 
drums,  only  a  throng  of  those  who  had  been  slaves, 
hastily  run  together,  escorting  the  victorious  chief 
into  the  capital  of  the  vanquished  foe.  We  are  told 
that  they  pressed  around  him,  kissed  his  hands  and  his 
garments,  and  shouted  and  danced  for  joy,  while  tears 
ran  down  the  President's  care-furrowed  cheeks. 

A  few  days  more  brought  the  surrender  of  Lee's 
army,  and  peace  was  assured.  The  people  of  the 
North  were  wild  with  joy.  Everywhere  festive  guns 
were  booming,  bells  pealing,  the  churches  ringing  with 
thanksgivings,  and  jubilant  multitudes  thronging  the 
thoroughfares,  when  suddenly  the  news  flashed  ovex 


TO  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  land  that  Abraham  Lincoln  had  been  murdered, 
The  people  were  stunned  by  the  blow.  Then  a  wail 
of  sorrow  went  up  such  as  America  had  never  heard 
before.  Thousands  of  Northern  households  grieved 
as  if  they  had  lost  their  dearest  member.  Many  a 
Southern  man  cried  out  in  his  heart  that  his  people 
had  been  robbed  of  their  best  friend  in  their  humilia- 
tion and  distress,  when  Abraham  Lincoln  was  struck 
down.  It  was  as  if  the  tender  affection  which  his 
countrymen  bore  him  had  inspired  all  nations  with 
a  common  sentiment.  All  civilized  mankind  stood 
mourning  around  the  coffin  of  the  dead  President. 
Many  of  those,  here  and  abroad,  who  not  long  before 
had  ridiculed  and  reviled  him  were  among  the  first  tc 
hasten  on  with  their  flowers  of  eulogy,  and  in  that 
universal  chorus  of  lamentation  and  praise  there  was 
iaot  a  voice  that  did  not  tremble  with  genuine  emotion. 
Never  since  Washington's  death  had  there  been  such 
unanimity  of  judgment  as  to  a  man's  virtues  and  great- 
ness ;  and  even  Washington's  death,  although  his 
name  was  held  in  greater  reverence,  did  not  touch  so 
sympathetic  a  chord  in  the  people's  hearts. 

Nor  can  it  be  said  that  this  was  owing  to  the  tragic 
character  of  Lincoln's  end.  It  is  true,  the  death  of 
this  gentlest  and  most  merciful  of  rulers  by  the  hand 
of  a  mad  fanatic  was  well  apt  to  exalt  him  beyond  his 
merits  in  the  estimation  of  those  who  loved  him,  and 
to  make  his  renown  the  object  of  peculiarly  tender 
solicitude.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  verdict  pro- 
nounced upon  him  in  those  days  has  been  affected 
little  by  time,  and  that  historical  inquiry  has  served 
rather  to  increase  than  to  lessen  the  appreciation  of 
his  virtues,  his  abilities,  his  services.  Giving  the  full- 
est measure  of  credit  to  his  great  ministers,  —  to  Sew 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  71 

ard  for  his  conduct  of  foreign  affairs,  to  Chase  for  the 
management  of  the  finances  under  terrible  difficulties, 
to  Stanton  for  the  performance  of  his  tremendous  task 
as  war  secretary,  —  and  readily  acknowledging  that 
without  the  skill  and  fortitude  of  the  great  command- 
ers, and  the  heroism  of  the  soldiers  and  sailors  under 
them,  success  could  not  have  been  achieved,  the  histo- 
rian still  finds  that  Lincoln's  judgment  and  will  were 
by  no  means  governed  by  those  around  him ;  that  the 
most  important  steps  were  owing  to  his  initiative ; 
that  his  was  the  deciding  and  directing  mind ;  and 
that  it  was  preeminently  he  whose  sagacity  and  whose 
character  enlisted  for  the  administration  in  its  strug- 
gles the  countenance,  the  sympathy,  and  the  support 
of  the  people.  It  is  found,  even,  that  his  judgment 
on  military  matters  was  astonishingly  acute,  and  that 
the  advice  and  instructions  he  gave  to  the  generals 
commanding  in  the  field  would  not  seldom  have  done 
honor  to  the  ablest  of  them.  History,  therefore,  with- 
out  overlooking  or  palliating  or  excusing  any  of  his 
shortcomings  or  mistakes,  continues  to  place  him  fore- 
most among  the  saviours  of  the  Union  and  the  libera- 
tors of  the  slave.  More  than  that,  it  awards  to  him 
the  merit  of  having  accomplished  what  but  few  polit- 
ical philosophers  would  have  recognized  as  possible,  — 
of  leading  the  republic  through  four  years  of  furious 
civil  conflict  without  any  serious  detriment  to  its  free 
institutions. 

He  was,  indeed,  while  President,  violently  de- 
nounced by  the  opposition  as  a  tyrant  and  a  usurper, 
for  having  gone  beyond  his  constitutional  powers  in 
authorizing  or  permitting  the  temporary  suppression 
of  newspapers,  and  in  wantonly  suspending  the  writ 
of  habeas  corpus  and  resorting  to  arbitrary  arrests* 


72  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

Nobody  should  be  blamed  who,  when  such  things  are 
done,  in  good  faith  and  from  patriotic  motives  pro- 
tests against  them.  In  a  republic,  arbitrary  stretches 
of  power,  even  when  demanded  by  necessity,  should 
never  be  permitted  to  pass  without  a  protest  on  the 
one  hand,  and  without  an  apology  on  the  other.  It 
is  well  they  did  not  so  pass  during  our  civil  war.  Thai 
arbitrary  measures  were  resorted  to,  is  true.  That 
they  were  resorted  to  most  sparingly,  and  only  when 
the  government  thought  them  absolutely  required  by 
the  safety  of  the  republic,  will  now  hardly  be  denied. 
But  certain  it  is  that  the  history  of  the  world  does 
not  furnish  a  single  example  of  a  government  passing 
through  so  tremendous  a  crisis  as  our  civil  war  was 
with  so  small  a  record  of  arbitrary  acts,  and  so  little 
interference  with  the  ordinary  course  of  law  outside  the 
field  of  military  operations.  No  American  President 
ever  wielded  such  power  as  that  which  was  thrust  into 
Lincoln's  hands.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that.no  American 
President  ever  will  have  to  be  intrusted  with  such 
power  again.  But  no  man  was  ever  intrusted  with  it 
to  whom  its  seductions  were  less  dangerous  than  they 
proved  to  be  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  With  scrupulous 
care  he  endeavored,  even  under  the  most  trying  cir- 
cumstances, to  remain  strictly  within  the  constitutional 
limitations  of  his  authority ;  and  whenever  the  bound- 
ary became  indistinct,  or  when  the  dangers  of  the  situ- 
ation forced  him  to  cross  it,  he  was  equally  careful  to 
mark  his  acts  as  exceptional  measures,  justifiable  only 
by  the  imperative  necessities  of  the  civil  war,  so  that 
they  might  not  pass  into  history  as  precedents  for 
similar  acts  in  time  of  peace.  It  is  an  unquestiona- 
ble fact  that  during  the  reconstruction  period  which 
followed  the  war,  more  things  were  done  capable  ol 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  73 

serving  as  dangerous  precedents  than  during  the  war 
itself.  Thus  it  may  truly  be  said  of  him  not  only  that 
under  his  guidance  the  republic  was  saved  from  dis- 
ruption and  the  country  was  purified  of  the  blot  of 
slavery,  but  that,  during  the  stormiest  and  most  peril- 
ous crisis  in  our  history,  he  so  conducted  the  govern* 
ment  and  so  wielded  his  almost  dictatorial  power  as 
to  leave  essentially  intact  our  free  institutions  in  all 
things  that  concern  the  rights  and  liberties  of  the  cit- 
izen. He  understood  well  the  nature  of  the  problem. 
In  his  first  message  to  Congress  he  defined  it  in 
admirably  pointed  language :  •"  Must  a  government 
be  of  necessity  too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  own 
people,  or  too  weak  to  maintain  its  own  existence? 
Is  there  in  all  republics  this  inherent  weakness?' 
This  question  he  answered  in  the  name  of  the  great 
American  republic,  as  no  man  could  have  answered 
it  better,  with  a  triumphant  "  No." 

It  has  been  said  that  Abraham  Lincoln  died  at  the 
right  moment  for  his  fame.  However  that  may  be, 
he  had,  at  the  time  of  his  death,  certainly  not  ex- 
hausted his  usefulness  to  his  country.  He  was  proba- 
bly the  only  man  who  could  have  guided  the  nation 
through  the  perplexities  of  the  reconstruction  period 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  prevent  in  the  work  of  peace 
the  revival  of  the  passions  of  the  war.  He  would 
indeed  not  have  escaped  serious  controversy  as  to 
details  of  policy ;  but  he  could  have  weathered  it  far 
better  than  any  other  statesman  of  his  time,  for  his 
prestige  with  the  active  politicians  had  been  immensely 
strengthened  by  his  triumphant  reelection  ;  and  what 
is  more  important,  he  would  have  been  supported  by 
the  confidence  of  the  victorious  Northern  people  that 
he  would  do  all  to  secure  the  safety  of  the  Union  and 


f4  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

the  rights  of  the  emancipated  negro,  and  at  the  same 
time  by  the  confidence  of  the  defeated  Southern  peo- 
ple that  nothing  would  be  done  by  him  from  motives 
of  vindictiveness,  or  of  unreasonable  fanaticism,  or  of 
a  selfish  party  spirit.  "  With  malice  toward  none, 
with  charity  for  all,"  the  foremost  of  the  victors  would 
have  personified  in  himself  the  genius  of  reconcilia- 
tion. 

He  might  have  rendered  the  country  a  great  ser- 
vice in  another  direction.  A  few  days  after  the  fall 
of  Richmond,  he  pointed  out  to  a  friend  the  crowd  of 
office-seekers  besieging  his  door.  "Look  at  that," 
said  he.  "  Now  we  have  conquered  the  rebellion,  but 
here  you  see  something  that  may  become  more  danger- 
ous to  this  republic  than  the  rebellion  itself."  It  is 
true,  Lincoln  as  President  did  not  profess  what  we 
now  call  civil  service  reform  principles.  He  used  the 
patronage  of  the  government  in  many  cases  avowedly 
to  reward  party  work,  in  many  others  to  form  combi- 
nations and  to  produce  political  effects  advantageous 
to  the  Union  cause,  and  in  still  others  simply  to 
put  the  right  man  into  the  right  place.  But  in  his 
endeavors  to  strengthen  the  Union  cause,  and  in  his 
search  for  able  and  useful  men  for  public  duties,  he 
frequently  went  beyond  the  limits  of  his  party,  and 
gradually  accustomed  himself  to  the  thought  that, 
while  party  service  had  its  value,  considerations  of 
the  public  interest  were,  as  to  appointments  to  office, 
of  far  greater  consequence.  Moreover,  there  had 
been  such  a  mingling  of  different  political  elements 
in  support  of  the  Union  during  the  civil  war  that 
Lincoln,  standing  at  the  head  of  that  temporarily 
united  motley  mass,  hardly  felt  himself,  in  the  narrow 
sense  of  the  term,  a  party  man.  And  as  he  became 


SCHURZ'S  ESSAY.  75 

strongly  impressed  with  the  dangers  brought  upon  the 
republic  by  the  use  of  public  offices  as  party  spoils,  it 
is  by  no  means  improbable  that  had  he  survived  the 
all-absorbing  crisis  and  found  time  to  turn  to  other 
objects,  one  of  the  most  important  reforms  of  later 
days  would  have  been  pioneered  by  his  powerful  au- 
thority. This  was  not  to  be.  But  the  measure  of  his 
achievements  was  full  enough  for  immortality. 

To  the  younger  generation  Abraham  Lincoln  has 
already  become  a  half-mythical  figure,  which,  in  the 
haze  of  historic  distance,  grows  to  more  and  more 
heroic  proportions,  but  also  loses  in  distinctness  of 
outline  and  feature.  This  is  indeed  the  common  lot 
of  popular  heroes ;  but  the  Lincoln  legend  will  be 
more  than  ordinarily  apt  to  become  fanciful,  as  his 
individuality,  assembling  seemingly  incongruous  qual- 
ities and  forces  in  a  character  at  the  same  time  grand 
and  most  lovable,  was  so  unique,  and  his  career  so 
abounding  in  startling  contrasts.  As  the  state  of 
society  in  which  Abraham  Lincoln  grew  up  passes 
away,  the  world  will  read  with  increasing  wonder  of 
the  man  who,  not  only  of  the  humblest  origin,  but 
remaining  the  simplest  and  most  unpretending  of  citi- 
zens, was  raised  to  a  position  of  power  unprecedented 
in  our  history ;  who  was  the  gentlest  and  most  peace- 
loving  of  mortals,  unable  to  see  any  creature  suffer 
without  a  pang  in  his  own  breast,  and  suddenly  found 
himself  called  to  conduct  the  greatest  and  bloodiest  of 
our  wars ;  who  wielded  the  power  of  government  when 
stern  resolution  and  relentless  force  were  the  order  of 
the  day,  and  then  won  and  ruled  the  popular  mind 
and  heart  by  the  tender  sympathies  of  his  nature1, 
who  was  a  cautious  conservative  by  temperament  and 
mental  habit,  and  led  the  most  sudden  and  sweeping 


76  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

social  revolution  of  our  time  ;  who,  preserving  his 
homely  speech  and  rustic  manner  even  in  the  most 
conspicuous  position  of  that  period,  drew  upon  him- 
self the  scoffs  of  polite  society,  and  then  thrilled  the 
soul  of  mankind  with  utterances  of  wonderful  beauty 
and  grandeur ;  who,  in  his  heart  the  best  friend  of 
the  defeated  South,  was  murdered  because  a  crazy 
fanatic  took  him  for  its  most  cruel  enemy ;  who,  while 
in  power,  was  beyond  measure  lampooned  and  ma- 
ligned by  sectional  passion  and  an  excited  party  spirit, 
and  around  whose  bier  friend  and  foe  gathered  to 
praise  him  —  which  they  have  since  never  ceased  to 
do  —  as  one  of  the  greatest  of  Americans  and  the  best 
of  men. 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

REMARKS  AT  THE  FUNERAL  SERVICES  HELD  IN  CON 

CORD,  APRIL  19,  1865. 

BY   RALPH   WALDO   EMERSON. 

WE  meet  under  the  gloom  of  a  calamity  which 
darkens  down  over  the  minds  of  good  men  in  all  civil 
society,  as  the  fearful  tidings  travel  over  sea,  over 
land,  from  country  to  country,  like  the  shadow  of  an 
uncalculated  eclipse  over  the  planet.  Old  as  history 
is,  and  manifold  as  are  its  tragedies,  I  doubt  if  any 
death  has  caused  so  much  pain  to  mankind  as  this 
has  caused,  or  will  cause,  on  its  announcement ;  and 
this,  not  so  much  because  nations  are  by  modern  arts 
brought  so  closely  together,  as  because  of  the  mysteri- 
ous hopes  and  fears  which,  in  the  present  day,  are  con- 
nected with  the  name  and  institutions  of  America. 

In  this  country,  on  Saturday,  every  one  was  struck 
dumb,  and  saw  at  first  only  deep  below  deep,  as  he 
meditated  on  the  ghastly  blow.  And  perhaps,  at  this 
hour,  when  the  coffin  which  contains  the  dust  of  the 
President  sets  forward  on  its  long  march  through 
mourning  States,  on  its  way  to  his  home  in  Illinois, 
we  might  well  be  silent,  and  suffer  the  awful  voices  of 
the  time  to  thunder  to  us.  Yes,  but  that  first  despair 
was  brief  :  the  man  was  not  so  to  be  mourned.  He 
was  the  most  active  and  hopeful  of  men  ;  and  his 
work  had  not  perished:  but  acclamations  of  praise 
Cor  the  task  he  had  accomplished  burst  out  into  a 


78  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

song  of  triumph,  which  even  tears  for  his  death  can 
not  keep  down. 

The  President  stood  before  us  as  a  man  of  the  pea 
pie.     He  was  thoroughly  American,  had  never  crossed 
the  sea,  had  never  been  spoiled  by  English  insularity 
or  French  dissipation ;  a  quite  native,  aboriginal  man, 
as  an  acorn  from  the  oak ;  no  aping  of  foreigners,  no 
frivolous  accomplishments,  Kentuckian  born,  working 
on  a  farm,  a  flatboat-man,  a   captain   in    the  Black 
Hawk  war,  a  country  lawyer,  a  representative  in  the 
rural  legislature  of  Illinois  ;  —  on  such  modest  foun- 
dations  the   broad    structure  of   his   fame  was  laid. 
How  slowly,  and  yet  by  happily  prepared  steps,  he 
came  to  his  place.     All  of  us  remember  —  it  is  only 
a  history  of  five  or  six  years  —  the  surprise  and  the 
disappointment  of  the  country  at  his  first  nomination 
by  the  convention  at  Chicago.     Mr.  Seward,  then  in 
the  culmination  of  his  good  fame,  was  the  favorite  of 
the  Eastern  States.     And  when  the  new  and  compara- 
tively  unknown    name    of   Lincoln    was    announced 
(notwithstanding  the  report   of   the  acclamations  of 
that   convention),    we   heard    the   result   coldly   and 
sadly.     It  seemed  too  rash,  on  a  purely  local  reputa- 
tion, to  build  so  grave  a  trust  in  such  anxious  times ; 
and  men  naturally  talked  of  the  chances  in  politics 
as  incalculable.     But  it  turned  out  not  to  be  chance. 
The  profound  good  opinion  which  the  people  of  Illi- 
nois and  of  the  West  had  conceived  of  him,  and  which 
they  had  imparted  to  their  colleagues,  that  they  also 
might  justify  themselves  to  their  constituents  at  home, 
was  not  rash,  though  they  did  riot  begin  to  know  the 
riches  of  his  worth. 

A  plain  man  of  the  people,  an  extraordinary  for- 
tune attended  him.     He  offered  no  shining  qualities 


EMERSON'S  REMARKS.  79 

at  the  first  encounter  ;  he  did  not  offend  by  superior- 
ity.  He  had  a  face  and  manner  which  disarmed  sus- 
picion, which  inspired  confidence,  which  confirmed 
good  will.  He  was  a  man  without  vices.  He  had 
a  strong  sense  of  duty,  which  it  was  very  easy  for 
him  to  obey.  Then  he  had  what  farmers  call  a 
long  head ;  was  excellent  in  working  out  the  sum  for 
himself ;  in  arguing  his  case  and  convincing  you 
fairly  and  firmly.  Then  it  turned  out  that  he  was  a 
great  worker ;  had  prodigious  faculty  of  performance ; 
worked  easily.  A  good  worker  is  so  rare  ;  everybody 
has  some  disabling  quality.  In  a  host  of  young  men 
that  start  together  and  promise  so  many  brilliant 
leaders  for  the  next  age,  each  fails  on  trial ;  one  by 
bad  health,  one  by  conceit,  or  by  love  of  pleasure,  or 
lethargy,  or  an  ugly  temper,  —  each  has  some  dis- 
qualifying fault  that  throws  him  out  of  the  career,; 
But  this  man  was  sound  to  the  core,  cheerful,  persist- 
ent, all  right  for  labor,  and  liked  nothing  so  well. 

Then  he  had  a  vast  good  nature,  which  made  him 
tolerant  and  accessible  to  all ;  fair  minded,  leaning  to 
the  claim  of  the  petitioner  ;  affable,  and  not  sensible 
fco  the  affliction  which  the  innumerable  visits  paid  to 
him  when  President  would  have  brought  to  any  one 
else.  And  how  this  good  nature  became  a  noble 
humanity,  in  many  a  tragic  case  which  the  events  of 
the  war  brought  to  him,  every  one  will  remember ; 
and  with  what  increasing  tenderness  he  dealt  when  a 
whole  race  was  thrown  on  his  compassion.  The  poor 
negro  said  of  him,  on  an  impressive  occasion,  "  Massa 
Linkum  am  eberywhere." 

Then  his  broad  good  humor,  running  easily  into 
jocular  talk,  in  which  he  delighted  and  in  which  he 
excelled,  was  a  rich  gift  to  this  wise  man.  It  enabled 


80  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

him  to  keep  his  secret ;  to  meet  every  kind  of  man 
and  every  rank  in  society ;  to  take  off  the  edge  of  the 
severest  decisions ;  to  mask  his  own  purpose  and 
sound  his  companion ;  and  to  catch  with  true  instinct 
the  temper  of  every  company  he  addressed.  And, 
more  than  all,  it  is  to  a  man  of  severe  labor,  in 
anxious  and  exhausting  crises,  the  natural  restorative, 
good  as  sleep,  and  is  the  protection  of  the  overdriven 
brain  against  rancor  and  insanity. 

He  is  the  author  of  a  multitude  of  good  sayings,  so 
disguised  as  pleasantries  that  it  is  certain  they  had  no 
reputation  at  first  but  as  jests ;  and  only  later,  by  the 
very  acceptance  and  adoption  they  find  in  the  mouths 
of  millions,  turn  out  to  be  the  wisdom  of  the  hour.  I 
am  sure  if  this  man  had  ruled  in  a  period  of  less  facil- 
ity of  printing,  he  would  have  become  mythological 
in  a  very  few  years,  like  .ZEsop  or  Pilpay,  or  one  of 
the  Seven  Wise  Masters,  by  his  fables  and  proverbs. 
But  the  weight  and  penetration  of  many  passages 
in  his  letters,  messages,  and  speeches,  hidden  now  by 
the  very  closeness  of  their  application  to  the  moment, 
are  destined  hereafter  to  wide  fame.  What  pregnant 
definitions ;  what  unerring  common  sense  ;  what  fore- 
sight ;  and,  on  great  occasion,  what  lofty,  and  more 
than  national,  what  humane  tone !  His  brief  speech 
at  Gettysburg  will  not  easily  be  surpassed  by  words 
on  any  recorded  occasion.  This,  and  one  other  Amer- 
ican speech,  that  of  John  Brown  to  the  court  that 
tried  him,  and  a  part  of  Kossuth's  speech  at  Birming- 
ham, can  only  be  compared  with  each  other,  and  with 
DO  fourth. 

His  occupying  the  chair  of  State  was  a  triumph  of 
the  good  sense  of  mankind,  and  of  the  public  con< 
Science.  This  middle-class  country  had  got  a  middle- 


EMERSVN'S  REMARKS.  81 

class  President,  at  last.  Yes,  in  manners  and  sympa- 
thies, but  not  in  powers,  for  his  powers  were  superior. 
This  man  grew  according  to  the  need.  His  mind 
mastered  the  problem  of  the  day;  and  as  the  pro- 
blem grew,  so  did  his  comprehension  of  it.  Rarely 
was  man  so  fitted  to  the  event.  In  the  midst  of  fears 
and  jealousies,  in  the  Babel  of  counsels  and  parties, 
this  man  wrought  incessantly  with  all  his  might  and 
all  his  honesty,  laboring  to  find  what  the  people 
wanted,  and  how  to  obtain  that.  It  cannot  be  said 
there  is  any  exaggeration  of  his  worth.  If  ever  a 
man  was  fairly  tested,  he  was.  There  was  no  lack  of 
resistance,  nor  of  slander,  nor  of  ridicule.  The  times 
have  allowed  no  state  secrets  ;  the  nation  has  been  in 
such  ferment,  such  multitudes  had  to  be  trusted,  that 
no  secret  could  be  kept.  Every  door  was  ajar,  and 
we  know  all  that  befell. 

Then,  what  an  occasion  was  the  whirlwind  of  the 
war.  Here  was  place  for  no  holiday  magistrate,  no 
fair-weather  sailor ;  the  new  pilot  was  hurried  to  the 
helm  in  a  tornado.  In  four  years,  —  four  years  of 
battle-days,  —  his  endurance,  his  fertility  of  resources, 
his  magnanimity,  were  sorely  tried  and  never  found 
wanting.  There,  by  his  courage,  his  justice,  his  even 
temper,  his  fertile  counsel,  his  humanity,  he  stood  ft 
heroic  figure  in  the  centre  of  a  heroic  epoch.  He  if 
the  true  history  of  the  American  people  in  his  time 
Step  by  step  he  walked  before  them ;  slow  with  theii 
slowness,  quickening  his  march  by  theirs,  the  tru( 
representative  of  this  continent ;  an  entirely  publi< 
man  ;  father  of  his  country,  the  pulse  of  twenty  mil- 
lions throbbing  in  his  heart,  the  thought  of  their 
minds  articulated  by  his  tongue. 

Adam  Smith  remarks  that  the  axe,  which  in  Hou 


82  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

braken's  portraits  of  British  kings  and  worthies  is 
engraved  tinder  those  who  have  suffered  at  the  block, 
adds  a  certain  lofty  charm  to  the  picture.  And  who 
does  not  see,  even  in  this  tragedy  so  recent,  how  fast 
the  terror  and  ruin  of  the  massacre  are  already  burn- 
ing into  glory  around  the  victim  ?  Far  happier  this 
fate  than  to  have  lived  to  be  wished  away ;  to  have 
watched  the  decay  of  his  own  faculties ;  to  have  seen 
• —  perhaps  even  he  —  the  proverbial  ingratitude  of 
statesmen ;  to  have  seen  mean  men  preferred.  Had 
he  not  lived  long  enough  to  keep  the  greatest  promise 
that  ever  man  made  to  his  fellow  men, —  the  practical 
abolition  of  slavery  ?  He  had  seen  Tennessee,  Mis- 
souri, and  Maryland  emancipate  their  slaves.  He  had 
seen  Savannah,  Charleston,  and  Richmond  surren- 
dered ;  had  seen  the  main  army  of  the  rebellion  lay 
down  its  arms.  He  had  conquered  the  public  opinion 
of  Canada,  England,  and  France.  Only  Washington 
can  compare  with  him  in  fortune. 

And  what  if  it  should  turn  out,  in  the  unfolding 
of  the  web,  that  he  had  reached  the  term  ;  that  this 
heroic  deliverer  could  no  longer  serve  us  ;  that  the 
rebellion  had  touched  its  natural  conclusion,  and  what 
remained  to  be  done  required  new  and  uncommitted 
hands,  —  a  new  spirit  born  out  of  the  ashes  of  the 
war ;  and  that  Heaven,  wishing  to  show  the  world  a 
completed  benefactor,  shall  make  him  serve  his  coun- 
try even  more  by  his  death  than  by  his  life  ?  Nations, 
like  kings,  are  not  good  by  facility  and  complaisance. 
"  The  kindness  of  kings  consists  in  justice  and 
strength."  Easy  good  nature  has  been  the  dangerous 
foible  of  the  Republic,  and  it  was  necessary  that  its 
enemies  should  outrage  it,  and  drive  us  to  unwonted 
firmness,  to  secure  the  salvation  of  this  country  in  the 
next  ages. 


EMERSON'S  REMARKS.  83 

The  ancients  believed  in  a  serene  and  beautiful 
Genius  which  ruled  in  the  affairs  of  nations ;  which, 
with  a  slow  but  stern  justice,  carried  forward  the  for- 
tunes of  certain  chosen  houses,  weeding  out  single 
offenders  or  offending  families,  and  securing  at  last 
the  firm  prosperity  of  the  favorites  of  Heaven.  It 
was  too  narrow  a  view  of  the  Eternal  Nemesis.  There 
is  a  serene  Providence  which  rules  the  fate  of  nations, 
which  makes  little  account  of  time,  little  of  one 
generation  or  race,  makes  no  account  of  disasters, 
conquers  alike  by  what  is  called  defeat  or  by  what 
is  called  victory,  thrusts  aside  enemy  and  obstruction, 
crushes  everything  immoral  as  inhuman,  and  obtains 
the  ultimate  triumph  of  the  best  race  by  the  sacrifice 
of  everything  which  resists  the  moral  laws  of  the 
world.  It  makes  its  own  instruments,  creates  the 
man  for  the  time,  trains  him  in  poverty,  inspires  his 
genius,  and  arms  him  for  his  task.  It  has  given  every 
race  its  own  talent,  and  ordains  that  only  that  race 
which  combines  perfectly  with  the  virtues  of  all  shal/ 
endure. 


THE  EMANCIPATION  GKOUP. 

BY   JOHN   GREENLEAF   WHITTIER. 

MOSES  KIMBALL,  a  citizen  of  Boston,  presented  tc 
the  city  a  duplicate  of  the  Freedman's  Memorial 
Statue  erected  in  Lincoln  Square,  Washington,  after 
a  design  by  Thomas  Ball.  The  group,  which  stands 
in  Park  Square,  represents  the  figure  of  a  slave,  from 
whose  limbs  the  broken  fetters  have  fallen,  kneeling 
in  gratitude  at  the  feet  of  Lincoln.  The  verses  which 
follow  were  written  for  the  unveiling  of  the  statuec 
December  9,  1879.  \  ! 

Amidst  thy  sacred  effigies 

Of  old  renown  give  place, 
O  city,  Freedom-loved  !  to  his 

Whose  hand  unchained  a  race. 

Take  the  worn  frame,  that  rested  not 

Save  in  a  martyr's  grave  ; 
The  care-lined  face,  that  none  forgot, 

Bent  to  the  kneeling  slave. 

Let  man  be  free  !     The  mighty  word 

He  spake  was  not  his  own  ; 
An  impulse  from  the  Highest  stirred 

These  chiselled  lips  alone. 

The  cloudy  sign,  the  fiery  guide, 
Along  his  pathway  ran, 


THE  EMANCIPATION  GROUP.  85 

And  Nature,  through  his  voice,  denied 
The  ownership  of  man. 

We  rest  in  peace  where  these  sad  eyes 

Saw  peril,  strife,  and  pain ; 
His  was  the  nation's  sacrifice, 

And  ours  the  priceless  gain. 

O  symbol  of  God's  will  on  earth 

As  it  is  done  above  ! 
Bear  witness  to  the  cost  and  worth 

Of  justice  and  of  love. 

Stand  in  thy  place  and  testify 

To  coming  ages  long, 
That  truth  is  stronger  than  a  lie, 

And  righteousness  than  wrong 


FOR  THE  SERVICES  IN  MEMORY  OF 
ABRAHAM  LINCOLN. 

CITY  OF  BOSTON,  JUNE  1,  1865. 

BY  OLIVER   WENDELL   HOLMES. 

CHORAL:  "Luther's  Judgment  Hymn." 

O  THOU  of  soul  and  sense  and  breath 

The  ever-present  Giver, 
Unto  thy  mighty  Angel,  Death, 

All  flesh  thou  dost  deliver  ; 
What  most  we  cherish  we  resign, 
For  life  and  death  alike  are  thine, 

Who  reignest  Lord  forever ! 

Our  hearts  lie  buried  in  the  dust 

With  him  so  true  and  tender, 
The  patriot's  stay,  the  people's  trust; 

The  shield  of  the  offender  ; 
Yet  every  murmuring  voice  is  still, 
As,  bowing  to  thy  sovereign  will, 

Our  best-loved  we  surrender. 

Dear  Lord,  with  pitying  eye  behold 

This  martyr  generation, 
Which  thou,  through  trials  manifold, 

Art  showing  thy  salvation ! 
Oh,  let  the  blood  by  murder  spilt 
Wash  out  thy  stricken  children's  guilt, 

And  sanctify  our  nation  I 


IN  MEMORY  OF  LINCOLN. 

Be  thou  thy  orphaned  Israel's  friend, 

Forsake  thy  people  never, 
In  One  our  broken  Many  blend 

That  none  again  may  sever ! 
Hear  us,  O  Father,  while  we  raise 
With  trembling  lips  our  song  of  praise 

And  bless  thy  name  forever  1 


87 


,       EXTRACT  FEOM  ODE 

KECITED  AT  THE  HARVARD  COMMEMORATION 

JULY  21, 1865. 

BY   JAMES   RUSSELL   LOWELL. 


V. 

WHITHER  leads  the  path 
To  ampler  fates  that  leads  ? 
Not  down  through  flowery  meads, 

To  reap  an  aftermath 
Of  youth's  vainglorious  weeds  ; 
But  up  the  steep,  amid  the  wrath 
And  shock  of  deadly-hostile  creeds, 
Where  the  world's  best  hope  and  stay 
By  battle's  flashes  gropes  a  desperate  way, 
And  every  turf  the  fierce  foot  clings  to  bleedsc 
Peace  hath  her  not  ignoble  wreath, 
Ere  yet  the  sharp,  decisive  word 
Light  the  black  lips  of  cannon,  and  the  sword 

Dreams  in  its  easeful  sheath ; 
But  some  day  the  live  coal  behind  the  thought, 
Whether  from  Baal's  stone  obscene, 
Or  from  the  shrine  serene 
Of  God's  pure  altar  brought, 
Bursts  up  in  flame ;  the  war  of  tongue  and  pen 
Learns  with  what  deadly  purpose  it  was  fraught. 
And,  helpless  in  the  fiery  passion  caught, 


LOWELL'S   ODE.  89 

Shakes  all  the  pillared  state  with  shock  of  men : 
Some  day  the  soft  Ideal  that  we  wooed 
Confronts  us  fiercely,  foe-beset,  pursued, 
And  cries  reproachful :  "  Was  it,  then,  my  praise, 
And  not  myself  was  loved  ?     Prove  now  thy  truth 
I  claim  of  thee  the  promise  of  thy  youth ; 
Give  me  thy  life,  or  cower  in  empty  phrase, 
The  victim  of  thy  genius,  not  its  mate  ! " 
Life  may  be  given  in  many  ways, 
And  loyalty  to  Truth  be  sealed 
As  bravely  in  the  closet  as  the  field, 

So  bountiful  is  Fate  ; 

But  then  to  stand  beside  her. 

When  craven  churls  deride  her, 
To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield, 

This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 

And  measure  of  a  stalwart  man, 

Limbed  like  the  old  heroic  breeds, 
Who  stands  self -poised  on  manhood's  solid  earth 
Not  forced  to  frame  excuses  for  his  birth, 
Fed  from  within  with  all  the  strength  he  needs. 

VI. 

Such  was  he,  our  Martyr-Chief, 

Whom  late  the  Nation  he  had  led, 
With  ashes  on  her  head, 
Wept  with  the  passion  of  an  angry  grief : 
Forgive  me,  if  from  present  things  I  turn 
To  speak  what  in  my  heart  will  beat  and  burn, 
And  hang  my  wreath  on  his  world-honored  urn. 

Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 

And  cannot  make  a  man 

Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 

Repeating  us  by  rote : 


90  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN-. 

For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 

Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new, 
Wise,  steadfast  in  the  strength  of  God,  and  trua 

How  beautiful  to  see 

Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  indeed, 
Who  loved  his  charge,  but  never  loved  to  lead ; 
One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be, 
Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth, 
But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth, 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity  ! 
They  knew  that  outward  grace  is  dust ; 
They  could  not  choose  but  trust 
In  that  sure-footed  mind's  unfaltering  skill, 

And  supple-tempered  will 
That  bent  like   perfect  steel  to  spring  again   ami 

thrust. 

His  was  no  lonely  mountain-peak  of  mind, 
Thrusting  to  thin  air  o'er  our  cloudy  bars, 
A  sea-mark  now,  now  lost  in  vapors  blind ; 
Broad  prairie  rather,  genial,  level-lined, 
Fruitful  and  friendly  for  all  human-kind, 
Yet  also  nigh  to  heaven  and  loved  of  loftiest  stars, 

Nothing  of  Europe  here, 
Or,  then,  of  Europe  fronting  morn  ward  still, 

Ere  any  names  of  Serf  and  Peer 
Could  Nature's  equal  scheme  deface 

And  thwart  her  genial  will ; 
Here  was  a  type  of  the  true  elder  race, 
And  one  of  Plutarch's  men  talked  with  us  face  to 

face. 

I  praise  him  not ;  it  were  too  late  ; 
And  some  innative  weakness  there  must  be 


LOWELL'S   ODE.  91 

In  him  who  condescends  to  victory 
Such  as  the  Present  gives,  and  cannot  wait, 
Safe  in  himself  as  in  a  fate. 
So  always  firmly  he  : 
He  knew  to  bide  his  time, 
And  can  his  fame  abide, 
Still  patient  in  his  simple  faith  sublime, 

Till  the  wise  years  decide. 
Great  captains,  with  their  guns  and  drums, 
Disturb  our  judgment  for  the  hour, 

But  at  last  silence  comes ; 
These  all  are  gone,  and,  standing  like  a  tower^ 
Our  children  shall  behold  his  fame, 

The  kindly-earnest,  brave,  foreseeing  man, 
Sagacious,  patient,  dreading  praise,  not  blame, 
New  birth  of  our  new  soil,  the  first  American. 


TEXTBOOKS  IN  CITIZENSHIP 

GOVERNMENT  AND  POLITICS  IN  THE  UNITED 
STATES.     Problems   of   American   Democracy.      A 

Textbook  for  Secondary  Schools. 

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This  book  fully  covers  the  requirements  of  modern  high 
schools  in  regard  to  the  teaching  of  Civics.  It  gives  an  ade- 
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state,  and  national,  emphasizing,  however,  the  practical 
activities  in  which  students  are  most  interested,  and  the 
problems  with  which  as  citizens  they  will  be  most  concerned. 
Questions  at  the  end  of  eaten  chapter  give  local  applications 
of  principles  discussed  in  the  text. 

PREPARING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP.     An  Elementary 
Textbook  in  Civics. 

By  WILLIAM  BACKUS  GUITTEAU,  Ph.D. 

This  is  an  admirable  textbook  for  the  upper  grammar 
grades,  and  for  the  first  year  of  the  high  school.  It  gives  in 
simple  language  a  very  clear  explanation  of  how  and  why 
governments  are  formed,  what  government  does  for  the 
citizen,  and  what  the  citizen  owes  to  his  government.  All 
necessary  facts  regarding  local,  state,  and  national  govern- 
ment are  given,  with  the  main  emphasis  upon  the  practical 
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questions  and  exercises  which  will  stimulate  investigation 
on  the  part  of  pupils  into  the  organization  and  functions  of 
local  government. 

AMERICANIZATION  AND  CITIZENSHIP. 

By  HANSON  HART  WEBSTER. 

Important  and  distinctive  features  of  this  book  are:  — 

(1)  the  catechism  upon  the  United  States  Constitution; 

(2)  the  statement  of  the  principles  underlying  our  govern- 
ment; (3)  the  explanation  of  the  duties  and  privileges  of 
citizens.     It  is  recommended  as  a  valuable  handbook  for 
all  Americans,  both  native  and  foreign-born. 


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AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

GOVERNMENT  AND  POLITICS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Revised  Edition. 

By  WILLIAM  B.  GUITTEAU,  Ph.D.,  formerly  Superintendent  of  Schools, 
Toledo,  Ohio. 

This  book  fully  covers  the  problems  of  American  Democracy. 
It  gives  an  adequate  knowledge  of  the  various  forms  of  government, 
local,  state,  and  national,  emphasizing  the  practical  activities  in 
which  students  are  most  interested,  and  the  problems  with  which  as 
citizens  they  will  be  most  concerned. 

GOVERNMENT  AND  POLITICS  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

Briefer  Edition, 

By  WILLIAM  BACKUS  GUITTEAU. 

This  book  meets  the  requirements  of  high  schools  limiting  the 
work  in  civics  to  less  than  a  year. 

PREPARING  FOR  CITIZENSHIP. 

By  WILLIAM  BACKUS  GUITTEAU. 

This  is  an  admirable  textbook  for  the  upper  grammar  grades,  or 
for  the  first  year  of  the  high  school.  All  necessary  facts  regarding 
local,  state,  and  national  government  are  given,  with  the  main  em- 
phasis upon  the  practical  aspects  of  government. 

CIVIL  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

By  JOHN  FISKE,  LL.D.    New  Edition,  with  additions  by  D.  S.  Sanford, 
Head  Master  of  the  Sanford  School,  Redding  Ridge,  Conn. 

AMERICAN  IDEALS. 

Edited  by  NORMAN  FOERSTER  and  W.  W.  PIERSON,  Jr.,  University  of 
North  Carolina. 

This  collection  of  representative  essays  and  addresses  of  our  most 
eminent  statesmen  and  men  of  letters  reveals  the  broad  foundations 
from  which  our  national  ideals  have  sprung. 

AMERICANIZATION  AND  CITIZENSHIP. 

By  HANSON  HART  WEBSTER. 

Important  and  distinctive  features  of  this  book  are:  —  (i)  the 
Catechism  upon  the  United  States  Constitution;  (2)  the  statement 
of  the  principles  underlying  our  government;  (3)  the  explanation  of 
the  duties  and  privileges  of  citizens.  It  is  recommended  as  a  valua- 
ble handbook  for  all  Americans,  both  native  and  foreign-born. 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

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RIVERSIDE  LITERATURE  SERIE 


(Continued) 


149. 
150. 
151. 
152. 
153. 
154. 
155. 
150. 
157. 
158. 
159. 
160. 
161. 
162. 
163. 
164. 
165. 
166. 
167. 
168. 
169. 
170. 
171, 
173. 
174. 
175. 
176. 
177. 
178. 
179. 
180. 
181. 
182. 
183. 
184. 
185. 
186. 
187, 
189. 
190. 

191. 
192. 
193. 
194. 
195. 
196. 
197. 
198, 
200. 
201. 
202. 
203. 
204. 
205. 
206. 
207. 
208. 
209. 
210. 
211. 
212. 
213. 
214. 
215. 
216. 
217. 


Shakespeare's  Twelfth  Night. 

Ouida's  Dog  of  Flanders,  etc. 

Evving's  Jackanapes,  etc. 

Martineau's  The  Peasant  and  the  Prince. 

Shakespeare's  MidsummerNight's  Dream. 

Shakespeare's  Tempest. 

Irving's  Life  of  Goldsmith. 

Tennyson's  Gareth  and  Lynette,  etc. 

The  Song  of  Roland. 

Malory's  Merlin  and  Sir  Baliu. 

Beowulf. 

Spenser's  Faerie  Queene.     Book  I. 

Dickens's  Tale  of  Two  Cities. 

Prose  and  Poetry  of  Cardinal  Newman. 

Shakespeare's  Henry  V. 

De  Quincey's  Joan  of  Arc,  etc. 

Scott's  Quentin  Durward. 

Carlyle's  Heroes  and  Hero- Worship. 

Longfellow's  Autobiographical  Poems. 

Shelley's  Poems. 

Lowell's  My  Garden  Acquaintance,  etc. 

Lamb's  Essays  of  Elia. 

172.  Emerson's  Essays. 

Kate  Douglas  Wiggin's  Flag-Raising. 

Kate  Douglas  Wiggin's  Finding  a  Home. 

Whittier's  Autobiographical  Poems. 

Burroughs's  Afoot  and  Afloat. 

Bacon's  Essays. 

Selections  from  John  Ruskin. 

King  Arthur  Stories  from  Malory. 

Palmer's  Odyssey. 

Goldsmith's  The  Good-Natured  Man. 

Goldsmith's  She  Stoops  to  Conquer. 

Old  English  and  Scottish  Ballads. 

Shakespeare's  King  Lear. 

Moores'a  Life  of  Lincoln. 

Thoreau's  Camping  in  the  Maine  Woods. 

188.  Huxley's  Autobiography,  and  Essays. 

Byron's  Childe  Harold,  Canto  IV,  etc. 

Washington's  Farewell  Address,  and  Web- 
ster's Bunker  Hill  Oration. 

The  Second  Shepherds'  Play,  etc. 

Mrs.  Gaskell's  Cranford. 

Williams's  ^Eneid. 

Irving'a  Bracebridge  Hall.     Selections. 

Thoreau's  Walden. 

Sheridan's  The  Rivals. 

Parton's  Captains  of  Industry.  Selected. 
199.  Macaulay'sLordClive  <m<1  W.Hastings. 

Howells's  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lapham. 

Harris's  Little  Mr.Thimblefinger  Stories. 

Jewett's  The  Night  Before  Thanksgiving. 

Shumway's  Nibelungenlied. 

Sheffield's  Old  Testament  Narrative. 

Powers's  A  Dickens  Reader. 

Goethe's  Faust.     Part  I. 

Cooper's  The  Spy. 

Aldrich's  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy. 

Warner's  Being  a  Boy. 

Wiggin's  Polly  Oliver's  Problem. 

Milton's  Areopagitica,  etc. 

Shakespeare's  Romeo  and  Juliet. 

Hemingway's  Le  Morte  Arthur. 

Moores's  Life  of  Columbus. 

Bret  Harte's  Tennessee's  Partner,  etc. 

Udall's  Ralph  Roister  Doister. 

Austin's  Standish  of  Standish,   Drama- 
tized. 


218.  Selected  Lyrics  from  Wordsworth, 

and  Shelley. 

219.  Selected   Lyrics   from  Dryden,   ( 

Gray,  Cowper,  and  Burns. 

220.  Southern  Poems. 

221.  Macaulay's  Speeches  on  Copyrigh 

coin's  Cooper  Union  Address. 

222.  Briggs's  College  Life. 

223.  Selections  from  the  Prose  Writings  < 

thew  Arnold. 

224.  Perry's  American  Mind  and  An 

Idealism. 

225.  Newman's  University  Subjects. 

226.  Burroughs's  Studies  in  Nature  ai 

erature. 

227.  Bryce's  Promoting  Good  Citizensh 

228.  Selected  English  Letters. 

229.  Jewett's  Play-Day  Stories. 

230.  Grenfell's  Adrift  on  an  Ice-Pan. 

231.  Muir's  Stickeen. 

232.  Wiggin's  The  Birds'  Christmas  Ca 

233.  Tennyson's  Idylls.    (Selected.) 

234.  Selected  Essays. 

235.  Briggs's  To  College  Girls. 

236.  Lowell's  Literary  Essays.     (Selecti 

238.  Short  Stories. 

239.  Selections  from  American  Poetry. 

240.  Howells's   The   Sleeping  Car,   an 

Parlor  Car. 

241.  Mills's  Story  of  a  Thousand- Year  Pii 

242.  Eliot's  Training  for  an  Effective  Li: 

243.  Bryant's  Hind.   Abridged  Edition. 

244.  Lockwood's  English  Sonnets. 

245.  Antin's  At  School  in  the  Promised 

246.  Shepard's  Shakespeare  Questions. 

247.  Muir's  The  Boyhood  of  a  Naturalii 

248.  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

249.  Palmer's  Self -Cultivation  in  Englh 

The  Glory  of  the  Imperfect. 

250.  Sheridan's  The  School  for  Scandal 

251.  Sir  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knigl. 

Piers  the  Ploughman. 

252.  Howells's  A  Modern  Instance. 

253.  Helen  Keller's  The  Story  of  My  Li 

254.  Rittenhouse's  The  Little  Book  of  1 

Verse. 

255.  Rittenhouse's  The  Little  Book  of  j 

can  Poets. 

256.  Richards's  High  Tide. 

257.  Kipling  Stories  and  Poems  Every 

Should  Know,  Book  I. 

258.  Kipling  Stories  and  Poems  Every 

Should  Know,  Book  II. 

259.  Burroughs's  The  Wit  of  a  Duck,  etc 

260.  Irving's  Tales  from  the  Alhambra. 

261.  Liberty,  Peace,  and  Justice. 

262.  A  Treasury  of  War  Poetry. 

263.  Peabody's  The  Piper. 

264.  Wiggin's  Rebecca  of  Sunnybrook  F 

265.  Aldrich's  Marjorie    Daw,    Goliath 

266.  Sharp's  Ways  of  the  Woods. 

267.  Rittenhouse's  The  Second  Book  of 

ern  Verse. 

268.  Drinkwater's  Abraham  Lincoln. 

269.  Wordsworth:   Selections.     Arnolc 

say  on  Wordsworth. 

270.  Burroughs's  Nature  Near  Home,  et 

271.  Mills's  Being  Good  to  Bears,  etc. 


RIVERSIDE  LITERATURE  SERIES 


(Continued} 


EXTRA  NUMBERS 


C  Warriner's  Teaching  of  English  Classics 
in  the  Grades. 

F   Longfellow  Leaflets. 

G    Whittier  Leaflets. 

If  Hol.nes  Leaflets. 

7    Thomas '  s  How  to  Teach  English  Classics. 

,/    Holbrook's  Northland  Heroes. 

K  Minimum  College  Requirements  in  Eng- 
lish for  Study. 

L    The  Riverside  Song  Book. 

M  Lowell's  Fable  for  Critics. 

N   Selections  from  American  Authors. 

0    Lowell  Leaflets. 

P    Holbrook's  Hiawatha  Primer. 

>2    Selections  from  English  Authors. 

R    Hawthorne's  Twice-Told  Tales.  Selected. 

S  Irving's  Essays  from  Sketch  Book.  Se- 
lected. 

T    Literature  for  the  Study  of  Language. 

U  A  Dramatization  of  the  Song  of  Hia- 
watha. 

V   Holbrook's  Book  of  Nature  Myths. 

W  Brown's  In  the  Days  of  Giants. 

X  Poems  for  the  Study  of  Language. 


Y 
Z 

AA 

BB 


Warner's  In  the  Wilderness. 
Nine  Selected  Poems. 

Coleridge's  The  Ancient  Mariner  and 
Lowell's  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal. 
Poe's  The  Raven,   Whittier's  Snow 
Bound,  and  Longltllow's  The  Court 
ship  of  Miles  Standish 
CC     Selections  for  Study  and  Memorizing 
DD     Sharp's  The  Year  Out-of-Doors. 
EE     Poems  for  Memorizing. 
FF     Poems  for  Reading  and  Memorizing 

Grades  I  and  II. 
GG     Poems  for  Reading  and  Memorizing. 

Grade  III. 
HH    Poems  for  Reading  and  Memorizing, 

Grade  IV. 
JJ      Poems  for  Reading  and  Memorizing, 

Grade  V. 
KK    Poems  for  Reading  and  Memorizing, 

Grade  VI. 

LL      Selections  for  Reading  and  Memoriz- 
ing, Grade  VII. 

MM    Selections  for  Reading  and  Memoriz- 
ing, Grade  VIII. 


LIBRARY  BINDING 


135-136.    Chaucer's  Prologue,  The  Knight's 

Tale. 

168.    Shelley's  Posms.   Selected. 
177.    Bacon's  Essays. 
181-182.     Goldsmith's  Plays. 
187-188.    Huxley's     Autobiography     and 

Essays. 

191.    Second  Shepherds'  Play,  etc. 
211.    Milton's  Areopagitica,  etc. 
216.    Ralph  Roister  Doister. 

222 .  Briggs '  s  Colle ge  Life . 

223.  Matthew  Arnold's  Prose  Selections. 

224.  Perry's  The  American  Mind,  etc. 

225.  Newman's  University  Subjects. 

226.  Burroughs 's  Studies  in  Nature  and 

Literature. 

227.  Bryce's  Promoting  Good  Citizenship. 

235.  Briggs 's  To  College  Girls. 

236.  Lowell's  Selected  Literary  Essays. 


242. 

244. 
246. 
248. 
250. 
251- 

252. 
254. 

255- 

256. 
267. 


K. 


Eliot's  The  Training  for  an  Effective 

Life. 

Lockwqod's  English  Sonnets. 
Shepard's  Sfcakesprare  Questions. 
EoswelPsLii€  of  Johnson.  Atridged. 
Sheridan's  The  School  for  Scandal. 
Sir  Gawain  and  the  Green  Knight, 

and  Piers  the  Ploughman. 
Howells's  A  Modern  Instance. 
Rittenhouse's  The   Little   Book    of 

Modern  Verse. 
Rittenhouse's   The   Little   Book   of 

American  Poets. 
Richards' s  High  Tide. 
Rittenhouse's  Second  Book  of  Modern 

Verse . 

Trinkwater's  Abraham  Lincoln. 
Minimum   College   Requirements  in 

English  for  Study. 


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